i have not mentioned mr. alfred mount lately though i saw him often on matters connected with the case. he was an interesting character. it was only by degrees that i realised what an extraordinary man i had to deal with. after our first meeting his manner towards me completely changed. he appeared to be sorry for his brusqueness on that occasion. now he was all frankness and friendliness. nothing crude, you understand, just the air of one man of the world towards another. i could not help but feel flattered by it.
while we worked together so amicably the mutual antagonism remained. i knew he still resented miss hamerton's having employed me without consulting him, and i believed that he was working independently. for my part, you may be sure, i told him nothing but what i had to. i found no little pleasure in blocking his subtle questioning by my air of clumsy innocence. i told him nothing about the cryptogram.
i never called at his office again. sometimes he dropped into mine, his bright eyes wandering all around, but more often i called on him at his apartment over the store. for he occupied the second floor of the beautiful little building which housed his business. there was however nothing of the old-fashioned shop-keeper about his place. i never saw such splendour before or since. but it took you a while to realise that it was splendour, for there was nothing showy or garish. everything he possessed was the choicest of its kind in the world. even with my limited knowledge, when i stopped to figure up the value of what i saw, i was staggered. i saw enough at different times to furnish several millionaires.
mount had a strange love for his treasures in which there was nothing of the usual self-glorification of millionaires. he had a modest, almost a tender, way of referring to his things, of handling them. i learned quite a lot about tapestries, rugs, chinese porcelains, enamels, ivories and gold workmanship from his talk. he did not care for paintings.
"too insistent," he said. "paintings will not merge."
the man was full of queer sayings, which he would drawl out with an eye to the effect he was creating on you.
he never allowed daylight to penetrate to his principal room, a great hall two stories high, lined with priceless tapestries.
"daylight is rude and unmanageable," he said. "artificial light i can order to suit my mood."
another odd thing was his antipathy to red. that colour almost never appeared in his treasures. in the tapestries greens predominated; the rugs were mostly old blues and yellows. the great room never looked quite the same. sometimes it was completely metamorphosed over night. i understood from something he let fall that the other floors of the building were stored with his treasures. he had them brought down and arranged according to his fancy. the only servant ever visible was a silent hindoo, who sometimes appeared in gorgeous eastern costume, encrusted with jewels. it occurred to me that that was how his master ought to dress. the sober clothes of a business man, however elegant, were out of place on mount. long afterwards i learned that it was his custom when alone to array himself like an eastern potentate, but i never saw him dressed that way.
one day, to see what he would say, i asked him point blank what was the value of miss hamerton's lost pearls.
he consulted a note-book. "she paid me at different times exactly twenty-five thousand, seven hundred for them."
"i know," i said quietly. "but what was their value?"
he bored me through and through with his jetty eyes before answering. finally he smiled—he had a charming smile when he chose, and spread out his hands in token of surrender. his hands were too white and beautiful for a man's.
"i see you know the truth," he said. "well—i am in your hands. i hope you will keep the secret. only a great deal of unhappiness could result from its becoming known."
"i shall not tell," i said. "but how much are they worth."
"i really couldn't say," he said frankly. "there is nothing like them in the world, nothing to measure them by, i mean. it would depend simply on how far the purchaser could go."
"wouldn't they be difficult to dispose of?"
"very. that is our hope in the present situation."
"do you suppose the thief knew what he was getting?"
"i doubt it. to distinguish the blue cast is a fad of my own. they ordinarily go with the black pearls."
later he returned to the subject of his own accord. "since you have learned or guessed so much, i should tell you the whole story, for fear you might have a doubt of miss hamerton."
"no danger of that," i said quickly.
he looked at me strangely. i suppose he was wondering if i presumed to rival him there. he immediately went on smoothly:
"she, of course, has no suspicion of the true value of the pearls. nor does she guess that they were in my possession for years. i let her have them one or two at a time. do you blame me—" he spread out his expressive hands again.
"they are the most beautiful pearls in all the world," he murmured softly, "the fruit of all my knowledge and my patience. pearls in a case are not pearls. only when they lie on the warm bosom of a woman are pearls really pearls. i wished to have the pleasure of seeing irma—miss hamerton wearing them. i could not give them to her. so i devised this innocent deception. wouldn't you have done the same?"
maybe i would. anyhow i didn't feel called upon to argue the matter with him, so i kept my mouth shut.
his long eyes narrowed. "if you had seen her wear the real pearls you would understand better," he said dreamily. "they glowed as if with pleasure in their situation. her skin is so tender that the veins give it a delicate bluish cast exactly matched by my exquisite pearls!"
to me there was something—what would you say, something delicately indecent in the way mount spoke of miss hamerton. it made me indignant deep down. but i said nothing.
"i am a fool about precious stones," he went on with that disarming smile. "no shop-keeper has any right to indulge in a personal passion for his wares. pearls come first with me, then diamonds. would you like to see my diamonds?"
without waiting for any answer he disappeared into the next room. i heard the ring of a burglar-proof lock. presently he returned bearing a little black velvet cushion on which lay a necklet of gleaming fire.
"i am no miser," he said smiling. "quantity does not appeal to me, nor mere bigness. only quality. this is my whole collection, seventy-two stones, the result of thirty years' search for perfection."
i gazed at the fiery spots speechlessly. before taking this case i had never thought much of precious stones. they had seemed like pretty things to me, and useless. but upon looking at these i could understand miss hamerton's reference to her pearls as living things. these diamonds were alive—devilishly alive. they twinkled up at mount like complaisant little slaves outvying each other to flatter their master. the sheer beauty of them caught at the breast. their fire bit into a man's soul. seeing it, i could understand the ancient lusts to rob and murder for bits of stone like these.
"aren't they lovely?" mount murmured.
"yes, like a snake," i blurted out.
he laughed. "that feeling seems strange to me. i love them."
"put them away!" i said.
he continued to laugh. he caressed the diamonds with his long, white fingers. "wouldn't you like to see miss hamerton wear them?" he asked softly.
"no, by god!" i cried. "she's a good woman."
he laughed more than ever. it was a kind of oriental laugh, soft, unwholesome. "i'm afraid you suffer from the puritan confusion of the ideas of beauty and evil," he said.
"maybe i do," i said shortly.
"some other time i will show you my emeralds and sapphires," he said.
i hated the things, yet i was eager to see them. that shows the effect they had on you. i was struck by his omission of rubies.
"how about rubies?" i asked.
he shivered. "i do not care for rubies. they are an ugly color."
i welcomed the chill, raw air of the street after that scented chamber. after the elegant collector of jewels my crude and commonplace fellow-citizens seemed all that was honest and sturdy. i was proud of them. yet i enjoyed going to mount's rooms, too. one could count on being thrilled one way or another.
