Henty George Alfred
Colonel Thorndyke's Secret
“To my surprise I found that they were much looser than they were before, although still tight enough to give me nearly an hour’s work before I got my hands free. Then it took me almost as long to get the ropes off my legs, for they had knotted them in such a fearfully intricate way that it was a long time before I could even discover where the ends were. At last I finished the job, stood up, and looked round. A quarter of a mile off there was a good sized town, but not a soul could I see.
“Till now I had hardly thought of the diamonds; I put my hands to my waistband and found, as I expected, that they were gone. I think I felt nothing but pleasure: the confounded things had given trouble enough, and I was well rid of them. Why they should have spared my life I could not imagine. If they had finished me, which they could have done without any risk to themselves when they got me ashore, they could have gone off with the diamonds without the slightest fear of pursuit, while now there was, of course, a chance that I might follow and recognize them.”
“Would you know them again?” the Lieutenant interrupted.
“Not in the slightest; it was light enough to see that they were dark, but from the time the boat came along the blanket was over my head, and except when they gave me the water I had no chance of seeing any of their features. Still, if I had gone straight to the town I saw and reported the matter to the authorities and sent mounted men to all the ports to warn them not to let any colored men embark, I might have given them a lot of trouble, but I don’t suppose any of them would ever have been caught. After the craft they had shown in the whole matter, it is certain that they would have laid their plans for escape so well that the law would never have laid hands upon them. I put my hand mechanically to my watch to see the time, and to my astonishment discovered that I still had it in my pocket, and was equally surprised to find that the money in my trousers’ pockets was also untouched. The watch had, of course, stopped. I first of all went down to the water and had a good wash; then I proceeded to the town, and, going to a hotel, ordered breakfast.”
“Why, I thought you said that you had had nothing to eat, Mark.”
“Yes? Well, I had forgotten all about that breakfast. The people looked a good deal surprised at an Englishman walking in in that way. While I was eating my breakfast two men—who were, I suppose, authorities of some kind—who spoke English, came and questioned me. As I had made up my mind to say nothing more about the affair, I merely told them that I had come for a sail from Amsterdam, and that I wanted a carriage to take me back. They were evidently astonished at my choosing a dark night for such a trip, but I said that I had some curiosity to see how the boatmen navigated their vessel when there were no lighthouses or anything to steer by. They asked a few more questions, and then went away, evidently thinking that I was a little mad. However, they must have spoken to the landlord, who in a short time made signs that the carriage was at the door.
“I had avoided asking the men either the name of the place or how far it was from any big town, because that would have made the whole affair more singular. It was a quarter past eight when I started, and beyond the fact that I know by the sun we came pretty nearly due east, I have not the slightest idea of the road. The coachman could not speak a word of English. I should say we came about seven miles an hour and stopped once to bait the horses, so I suppose that it must have been between four and five miles from Rotterdam when I landed.”
Lunch had by this time been laid on the table, and at Dick’s invitation the Lieutenant joined them.
“It is an extraordinary story!” he said. “That your life should have been spared is altogether beyond my comprehension, still more so why they should have left you your money and watch.”
“The whole story is extraordinary,” Dick Chetwynd said; “for we have every reason to believe that those fellows, or at least one or two of them, have been patiently watching for a chance of carrying off those diamonds for twenty years. When my friend told me of it ten days ago I did not believe that it could be possible; but he has certainly shown that he was correct in his opinion.”
Mark then related the history of the jewels, surprising the pugilists and detectives as much as the Lieutenant.
“It is extraordinary indeed,” the latter said. “I should not have believed it possible that men would devote so many years to such a purpose, nor that they could have succeeded in tracing the diamonds in spite of the precaution taken by your uncle, and afterwards by yourself. It would seem that from the time he landed in England he, and after him your father and yourself, must have been watched almost night and day. I can understand now why they did not take your watch and money. They evidently acted from a sort of religious enthusiasm, and were no ordinary thieves, but as evidently they did not hesitate to kill, I cannot understand why they should have added to their risks by sparing you.”
“No, that is what puzzles me,” Mark agreed. “I was thinking it over while we were driving here. Now let me hear about the fight, Dick. How did you all come out of it?”
“As well as could be expected. Gibbons and Tring both got some heavy blows with the cudgels, as indeed we all did more or less, but they did great execution. Eleven fellows were left senseless on the ground, and one of them, that black fellow who came over with us, was killed. The other ten are all in prison. All of us did our best, and managed to leave our mark on eight others, who were in consequence picked out, and are also in jail.”
Dick went on to relate the particulars of the search.
“You see, our friend here had traced you to the barge and found out her destination, and if you had come ten minutes later you would have found that we had all just started for Rotterdam. I was only waiting for Chester and Malcolm to return to set out. I am sorry, Mark, that you have lost your diamonds; not so much because they are gone, for I can well understand you to be thoroughly glad to be rid of such dangerous articles, but because they have carried them off in our teeth, after we have been specially retained to protect you. I certainly thought that with such a bodyguard you were absolutely safe from any number of Hindoos.”
“Yes, we made a regular mess of it, Mr. Thorndyke,” Gibbons said. “I never felt so certain of winning a battle as I did that you would not be touched as long as we were looking after you. Tring and I, if we had been asked, would have said that we could each have taken on a dozen foreigners easily. Mr. Chetwynd is handy with his fists too, though he hasn’t your weight and reach, and your two other friends are both pretty well accustomed to deal with rough customers. As for Tring and me, it makes one feel small to know that we have been bested by a handful of niggers, or Hindoos, or whatever the chaps are, whom a good sized boy of twelve ought to be able to polish off.”
“Now, Mark, what is to be done next?” Dick Chetwynd asked.
“The next thing will be to get back as soon as we can, Dick. I, for one, have had enough of Holland to last me for a lifetime.”
“I am afraid, gentlemen,” the Lieutenant said, “you will have to wait a day or two before you can leave. I have nineteen men in prison, and there will be a meeting of magistrates this afternoon. Now you have come back, Mr. Thorndyke, the charge against them won’t be as serious as it would have been before, but they are guilty of a desperate and premeditated assault upon six passengers on their arrival here; they have already admitted that they were paid for their work; and as among them are some of the worst characters in the city, you may be sure that now we have got them fairly in our hands we shall not let them go. It is so simple an affair that the investigation ought not to take long, but we shall want to find out, if we can, who acted as the intermediary between the Hindoos and the prisoners. I should think that two meetings ought to be sufficient for the present, but I am afraid that there may then be a long remand, and that you will either have to remain here or to come over again.”
“It would be a horrible nuisance,” Dick said; “still it would be better to come back again than to wait here indefinitely, and anyhow I don’t suppose it would be necessary for all of us to come back again.”
“I should not mind if it could be arranged for me to be here again in a month’s time,” Mark agreed, “for, to tell you the truth, I am going to be married in less than three weeks, and as I had intended to come to Brussels, and afterwards to travel for a while, I could make a visit here without greatly putting myself out.”
“I will try and arrange that, Mr. Thorndyke.”
“I shall be glad,” Mark said, “if you can manage to get the men sentenced without going into the question of the diamonds at all, and treat the matter as a mere attempt at robbery. It surely would not be necessary to bring the question of my being carried away into the matter at all; I can give evidence that I was knocked down and stunned, and that I was robbed of some jewels that I had about me, which were the object of the attack.”
“I think we should have to admit that,” the Lieutenant said; “it must come out that the attack was an organized one.”
“Well, if it must, it must,” Mark said reluctantly; “but then, you see, no end of questions would be asked, and the thing might be delayed while a search is being made for the men who stole the bracelet.”
“Well, we will keep it out of the inquiry if we can,” the Lieutenant said. “The meeting will be at three o’clock. I will send a man to take you to the Town Hall.”
At the appointed hour the party proceeded to the court, and the eighteen prisoners, under a strong guard, having been brought in, six magistrates took their places on the bench; the rest of the court was crowded, the fray on the wharf and the number of captures having created quite a stir in the city. They had arranged that Tring should first give his evidence, which he did, the Lieutenant of the watch acting as interpreter, though most of the magistrates understood English. The appearance of the prisoners created quite a sensation in the court, for the injuries that they had received were now even more conspicuous than they had been when they were first captured; some of them had to be led into court, their eyes being completely closed, others had their heads bandaged, and all showed signs of tremendous punishment. Tring related that he, with five others, had come ashore together; one of his companions had a row on board a ship they had crossed in, with a Lascar sailor, who was a passenger, and they kept together as they were crossing the wharf, thinking that possibly the man might attempt to stab his companion.
“I was walking behind him,” Tring went on, “when the Lascar jumped suddenly out from among the men standing about, and was about to stab my companion, when I hit him just in time, and he went down; then there was a rush, and we all got separated, and did as well as we could until the watch came up; that is all that I know about it.”
“Is the Lascar among the prisoners?” one of the magistrates asked the Lieutenant of the watch.
“No, sir, when picked up by one of my men he was found to be dead; the blow had apparently killed him instantly.”
The other five then gave their evidence; it was similar to that of Tring, save that being in front of him they knew nothing of the attack by the Lascar. All they knew about it was that there was a sudden rush upon them by a number of men armed with bludgeons, that they were separated, and that each defended himself until the guard came up.
Some of the watch then gave evidence, and told how on arriving at the spot eleven of the prisoners were found lying senseless; how, on recovering, they were all taken to the watch house, where several of them were recognized as notoriously bad characters; they had admitted that they were paid to make the attack, which was apparently the result of the private enmity of some person or persons unknown to one or more of those attacked.
The Lieutenant then related the steps that he had taken to capture others connected with the attack, and that he found eight men bearing marks of the fray, and that all these were also notorious characters, and associates of the prisoners first taken. The first witnesses were again questioned; five of them said that, so far as they knew, they had no personal enemies. Mark, who was the last to get into the witness box, said that he himself had no enemies, but that an uncle of his, who was in the British Indian service, had a sort of feud with some members of a sect there on account of some jewels that he had purchased, and which had, they declared, been stolen from a temple. Two soldiers through whose hands these things had passed, had been successively killed by them, and his uncle had to the day of his death believed that their vengeance would one day fall upon him.
“I can only suppose,” continued Mark, “that I have inherited the enmity they bore him, as I inherited the jewels, and that the attack was really designed solely against me, and the consequences might have been fatal to me had it not been for the strength and courage of my fellow passengers.”
“Did they come with you for your protection, Mr. Thorndyke?”
“To some extent, yes. The fact is, that I have for some time been convinced that I was followed about by natives of India, and remembering what my uncle had said on the subject, I became to some degree apprehensive, and thought it as well to leave London for a short time. That this attack was really instigated by the men I have no doubt whatever, since, as you have heard, it was begun by a Lascar, who tried to stab one of my companions and who received a knockdown blow that caused his death from one of the others. It is a well known fact that these people will cherish for many years a determination to avenge any injury. However, I hope that after the failure of this attempt upon my life I shall hear no more of them.”
“Were any knives found on the prisoners?” the magistrates asked the Lieutenant of the watch.
“No, sir; all carried clubs. And they told me that they had been especially ordered not to take knives, and had indeed been searched before they came out.”
“What impression do you gather from that, Mr. Thorndyke?”
“My impression is, sir, that they desired to overpower those with me and to beat them down, in order to carry out their revenge upon me.”
After some consultation the magistrate who had before spoken said:
“The prisoners will be remanded. It is necessary that we should find out who was the chief culprit who bribed this gang.”
As soon as the prisoners were taken out of court Mark slipped across to the magistrates, accompanied by the Lieutenant as interpreter.
“I hope, gentlemen, that our presence here will not be necessary, for it would be a matter of extreme inconvenience. I may say that my marriage is fixed for today three weeks, hence you can well imagine that I want to return as soon as possible. Two of the men are, as you have heard, Bow Street officers, whose presence could not well be spared.”
The magistrates again consulted together.
“Your evidence has all been taken down by the clerk of the court. Certainly we should not require your presence at the remand; but whether we should do so at the trial would, of course, depend upon whether these men all own their guilt, which, having been taken red handed, it is likely enough they will do. We will consent, therefore, to your leaving, if you will give us an undertaking to return for the trial if your presence is necessary, and that you will bring with you the man who struck down the Lascar who commenced the fray, and one of the others.”
“That I will do willingly,” Mark replied. “We are much obliged to you for your consideration. I shall be traveling for a time after my marriage; but I will as I pass through Belgium after my marriage give you the route I intend to take and the address at which letters will find me, and if you send me a sufficiently long notice I will at once return for the trial.”
CHAPTER XXI
“You managed that very well, Mark,” Dick said. “You kept well within the limits of truth without bringing the real facts of the attack upon us into the case.”
“Well, you see, Dick, after working as a detective, one gets into the way of telling stories with the smallest amount of deviation possible from the truth. What will these fellows get done to them, Lieutenant?”
“I should say that they will get two or three years imprisonment; the only charge now is rioting and assault. It is lucky for them that they had clubs instead of knives, for that would have brought the matter under the head of attempted murder. The matter of the gems was not important in the case, but there is sure to be a great fuss and search for the missing Indians. I suppose you will soon be off home now?”
“Yes, I shall find out tonight what vessel leaves for England tomorrow, and take a berth in the first that sails for London. It is too late to think of starting this evening, and indeed I feel that I want a long night’s rest, for I did not sleep much last night, and have not quite recovered from that crack on my head.”
On his return to the hotel Mark sent out a man to inquire at the shipping offices, and finding that a bark would sail at nine o’clock the next morning, they went down and took berths, and sailed in her next day. The voyage home was a rapid one, for the wind blew steadily from the east, and the vessel made the passage to the mouth of the river in two days, and the next took them up to London.
“I will call round tomorrow or next day, Gibbons, with the checks for you both,” Mark said as he prepared to go ashore.
“No, sir. We are both of one mind that we could not take them. We went over to prevent you being robbed of those sparklers, and to see that you came to no harm. Well, the things are lost, and you got knocked down and carried away. It is no thanks to us that you are alive now. It is a mortifying job, that with two detectives to watch over things and with us to fight we should have been fairly beat by a few black niggers.”
“If there had been any bungling on your part, Gibbons, there might be something in what you say, but no one could have foreseen that before we had been on shore two minutes we should have been attacked in that way. You both did all that men could do, as was shown by the condition of the fellows who were taken. I was just as much separated from you as you were from me, and the fact that we were surprised as we were is really due to my not determining to stay on board until the morning, which I could no doubt have done with the captain’s permission. It never struck me for a moment that we should be attacked in force. I thought it probable that an attempt at assassination would be made, but it certainly did not seem probable that it would be attempted while you were all with me. You are not in the slightest degree to blame, for your part of the agreement was carried out to my satisfaction. I shall certainly carry out mine, as I have arrived home safe and sound.”
“Well, governor, it is very good of you; but I tell you it will go against the grain for us to take your money.”
On landing, Mark parted with Dick Chetwynd, who had arranged to drop Mark’s bag at his lodgings on his way home, and at once took a hackney coach to Islington. Millicent gave a cry of delight as he entered the room.
“You are back earlier than I expected, Mark. You told me before you started that the wind was in the east, and that you might be a long time getting to Amsterdam unless it changed. I have been watching the vane on the church, and it has been pointing east ever since.
“Well, you have sold the diamonds, I hope?” she said, after the first greeting was over.
“No; I have bad news for you, Millicent; the jewels have been stolen.”
“Well it does not make much difference, Mark. We have much more than enough without them, so don’t bother yourself in the least. How did it happen?”
“Well, it is rather a long story. I will tell it you when Mrs. Cunningham is here, so as not to have to go over it twice. How are the dresses getting on?”
“I suppose they are getting on all right,” she said. “I have done nothing for the last two days but try them on. You see, we put them out to three milliners, and they all three seem to reach the same point together, and I start after breakfast, and it takes about two hours at each place. You don’t know what trouble you have given me by hurrying things on so unreasonably.”
“Well, it is better to have it all done and over,” he said, “than to have the thing hanging over you for a couple of months.”
“That is what Mrs. Cunningham says. Now I want to hear about your adventures, and I will call her down.”
“Only think, Mrs. Cunningham,” Millicent said presently, with a laugh, after she had returned with her, “this silly boy has actually let the diamonds be stolen from him.”
“No, really, Millicent!”
“Yes, indeed. Fancy his not being fit to be trusted to look after them! However, I tell him it is of no consequence. I don’t know how they went. He would not tell me the story until you came down.”
“I am sorry to say it is true, Mrs. Cunningham, although I can assure you that I really cannot blame myself for either carelessness or stupidity. I knew when I started that there was a very great risk, and took what seemed to me every possible precaution, for in addition to Dick Chetwynd going with me, I took two detectives from Bow Street and two prize fighters.”
Exclamations of surprise broke from both ladies.
“And yet, in spite of all that, these things were stolen,” Millicent said. “How on earth did they do it? I should have sewn them up in my pockets inside my dress.”
“I sewed them up in the waistband of my trousers, Millicent, and yet they managed, in spite of us, to steal them. And now I must begin by telling you the whole history of those diamonds, and you will understand why I thought it necessary to take a strong party with me.”
He then told them, repeating the history the Colonel had given his father of the diamonds, and the conviction that he had, that he had been followed by Hindoos, and the instructions he had given for the disposal of the bracelet.
“As you know,” he said, “nothing happened to confirm my uncle’s belief that there were men over here in search of the diamonds during my father’s life, but since then I have come to the same conclusion that he had, and felt positive that I was being constantly followed wherever I went. As soon as I heard where the treasure was I began to take every precaution in my power. I avoided going to the bank after my first visit there, and, as you know, would not bring the things for you to look at. I got Dick Chetwynd to go there, open the case, and take out these diamonds. He did not bring them away with him, but fetched them from there the morning we started. He went down and took the passage for us both at the shipping office, and the pugilists and the detectives each took passages for themselves, so that I hoped, however closely I was followed, they would not learn that I was taking them to Amsterdam.”
“It was very wrong, Mark; very wrong indeed,” Millicent broke in. “You had no right to run such a terrible risk; it would have been better for you to have taken the diamonds and thrown them into the Thames.”
“That would not have improved matters,” he said; “the Indians would not have known that I had got rid of them, and would have continued their efforts to find them, and I should always have been in danger instead of getting it over once for all. However, I did not think that there was any danger, going over as I did, with two of the best prize fighters in England, to say nothing of the detectives, who were the men who were with me when I caught Bastow. The only danger was that I might be stabbed; but, as they would know, it was no use their stabbing me unless they could search me quietly, and that they could not do unless I was alone and in some lonely neighborhood, and I had made up my mind not to stir out unless the whole party were with me. I found out, when we got on board that in spite of all the precautions I had taken, they had discovered that I was going to sail for Amsterdam, which they could only have done by following Dick as well as myself. There was a dark faced foreign sailor, who, I had no doubt, was a Hindoo, already on board, and I saw another in a boat watching us start; this was unpleasant, but as I felt sure that they could not have known that I had with me detectives and pugilists, I still felt that they would be able to do nothing when I got to Amsterdam.”
Then he told them the whole story of the attack, of his being carried away, and of his unexpected release; of the search that had been made for him and the arrest of eighteen of his assailants. Millicent grew pale as he continued, and burst into tears when she heard of his being a prisoner in the hands of the Hindoos.
“I shall never let you go out of my sight again, Mark!” she exclaimed when he had finished. “It was bad enough before when you were searching for that man here, and I used to be terribly anxious; but that was nothing to this.”
“Well, there is an end of it now, Millicent; the men have got the diamonds, and will soon be on their way to India, if they have not started already.”
“Nasty things!” she said; “I shall never like diamonds again: they will always remind me of the terrible danger that you have run. Isn’t it extraordinary that for twenty years four or five men should be spending their lives waiting for a chance of getting them back!”
“I do not expect there were so many as that; probably there was only one. He would have no difficulty in learning that my father had not received any extraordinary gems from my uncle, and probably supposed that they would not be taken out from wherever they might be until you came of age. After the death of my father he might suppose that I should take them out, or that, at any rate, I should go to whoever had them, and see that they were all right, and he then, perhaps, engaged half a dozen Lascars—there are plenty of them at the docks—and had me watched wherever I went; and, do you know, that I believe I once owed my life to them.”
“How was that, Mark?”
“Well, I was captured by some fellows who suspected me to be a Bow Street runner, and I think that it would have gone very hard with me if a party of five or six prize fighters had not broken into the house, pretty nearly killed the men in whose hands I was, and rescued me. They said that they had heard of my danger from a foreign sailor who called at Gibbons’, with whom I was in the habit of boxing, and told him about it. You see, until they learned where the jewels were, my life was valuable to them, for possibly I was the only person who knew where they were hidden; so really I don’t think I have any reason for bearing a grudge against them. They saved my life in the first place, and spared it at what was a distinct risk to themselves. On the other hand, they were content with regaining the bracelet, not even, as I told you, taking my watch or purse. You see, with them it was a matter of religion. They had no animosity against me personally, but I have no doubt they would have stabbed me without the slightest compunction had there been no other way of getting the things. Still, I think that I owe a debt of gratitude to them rather than the reverse, and, after all, the loss of the bracelet is not a serious one to us.”
“I am glad it is gone,” Millicent said. “You say it had already caused the death of two men, and if you had succeeded in selling it I can’t help thinking that the money would have brought ill fortune to us. I am heartily glad that the diamonds are gone, Mark. I suppose they were very handsome?”
“They were magnificent,” he said. “Dick and Cotter both agreed that they had never seen their equal, and I fancy that they must have been worth a great deal more than your father valued them at.”
“Well, it does not matter at all. There is no history attached to the others, I hope, Mark?”
“Not in any way, dear. They were bought, as the Colonel told my father, in the ordinary course of things, and some, no doubt, were obtained at the capture of some of the native princes’ treasuries; but it was solely on account of this bracelet that he had any anxiety. You can wear all the others, if you have a fancy for keeping them, without a shadow of risk.”
“No, Mark, we will sell them every one. I don’t think that I shall ever care to wear any jewels again; and if I am ever presented at court and have to do so, I would rather that you should buy some new ones fresh from a jeweler’s shop than wear anything that has come from India.”
“To-morrow you shall both go to the bank with me to see them, and then I will take them to some first-class jeweler’s and get him to value them.”
The visit was paid next day. Both Millicent and Mrs. Cunningham were somewhat disappointed at the jewels.
“It is hardly fair to see them like this,” Philip Cotter said. “They would look very different if reset. No Indian jewels I have ever seen show to advantage in their native settings; but many of the stones are very large, and without knowing anything about them I should say that they are worth the 50,000 pounds at which you say Colonel Thorndyke valued them. He was not likely to be mistaken. He was evidently a judge of these matters, and would hardly be likely to be far wrong.”
“We will go with you to the jeweler’s, Mark,” Millicent said. “In the first place, I shall not feel quite comfortable until I know that they are out of your hands, and in the next place I should like to hear what he thinks of them.”
“I have a number of Indian jewels that I wish you to value for me,” Mark said, as, carrying the case, he entered the jeweler’s shop. “They were collected by Colonel Thorndyke, an uncle of mine, during service in India.”
