The Master Detective Part 38

"What is it that particularly makes you think it was Mr. Majendie?"

"I just think it, sir; I can't rightly say why."

"What did he do, exactly?" said Quarles. "Just show me--show me his action. Here are the bits of rock in the bag; take the bag up and pretend to pitch it into the sea, as he did."

The sailor took up the bag and did so. His pantomime was quite realistic.

"I note that you turn your back to us," said Quarles.

"Ay, sir, because his back was turned to me. It wasn't until he made the action of throwing--just like that, it was--that I knew he had anything in his hand."

"Did you call out to him?"

"No; he was there and gone directly."

"It was a bad throw, too?"

"Ay, sir, it was; he did it awkward, something like women throws when they ain't used to throwing."

"That good fellow would feel far more uncomfortable in the witness-box than most criminals do in the dock," said Quarles when the sailor had gone. "He is as certain that it was Mr. Majendie as he is certain of anything, but he is not going to commit himself. Shall we have a talk with Mr. Majendie next? Let me question him, Wigan."

Majendie's appearance was in his favor. He might be a villain, but he didn't look it. There was Southern warmth in his countenance and temper in his dark eyes, but his smile was prepossessing.

"A sailor's absurd mistake has put you to great inconvenience, I fear,"

said Quarles.

"The inconvenience is nothing," was the answer. "I court enquiry."

"Of course you were not on the deck that night?"

"No."

"It is Mr. Hardiman's past I want to get at," said the professor. "You had some talk with him during the voyage; what did you think was his business in life?"

"He was a traveler. I think he had been where no other civilized man has been. He did not directly tell me so, but I fancy he had wandered in the interior of Patagonia."

"Should you say he was a geologist?"

"No," said Majendie with a smile. "He showed me some pieces of rock he had with him; indeed, I am suspected of flinging some of these bits of rock away in that canvas bag I see there. Is it likely I should do anything so foolish? It is part of my business to know something of bits of rock and blue clay and the like, and unless I am much mistaken those bits of rock are uncut diamonds."

"Diamonds!" I exclaimed.

"Yellow diamonds of a kind that are very rarely found," Majendie answered. "I may be mistaken, but that is my opinion. If I am right, the actual gem, when cut, would be comparatively small. It is enclosed, as it were, in a thick casing of rock."

"Did Hardiman know this?" Quarles asked.

"I am not sure. In the course of conversation I told him that I knew something about diamonds, and he asked me into his cabin to show me some bits of rock he had in his trunk. He spoke of them as bits of rock, but he may have known what they really were."

"Did he give you this invitation quite openly?" asked Quarles.

"Oh, yes. There were others sitting near us who must have overheard it. I went with him, and gave him my opinion as I have given it to you. Of course, there may not be a jewel at the heart of every bit of rock; no doubt there are a great many quite useless bits in Hardiman's collection."

"This is very interesting," said Quarles. "Would you look at the pieces in that bag and tell us if any of them are useless."

Majendie spent some minutes in examining them, and then gave it as his opinion that they all contained a jewel.

"Now that knife--"

"I thought no knife had been found," said Majendie.

"That has just been found on the s.h.i.+p," said Quarles. "It is an absurd question, but as a matter of form I must ask it. Have you ever seen that knife before?"

Majendie took it up and looked at it.

"Hardiman was apparently stabbed with a rusty knife," Quarles remarked.

"Stabbed! You could not stab any one with this, and certainly I have never seen it before."

I did not understand why Quarles was pa.s.sing this off as the real weapon. He took it up, grasped it firmly, and stabbed the air with it.

"I don't know, it might--"

He shook his head and put the knife on the table again. Majendie took it up and in his turn stabbed the air with it.

"Utterly impossible," he said. "This could not have been the knife used; besides, there would surely be stains on it."

"I am inclined to think you are right," said Quarles. "You must forgive the captain for detaining you, Mr. Majendie, and of course you can land this afternoon. The captain wishes us to lunch on board; perhaps you will join us?"

"With pleasure. So long as I am in London to-night no harm is done."

When he had gone Quarles turned to the captain.

"Pardon my impudence, but we must not lose sight of Majendie. You must follow him this afternoon, Wigan, and locate him in London. You must have him watched until we get to the bottom of this affair. Now let us see Bennett."

The man-servant proved to be a bundle of nerves, and it was hardly to be wondered at if the story he told was true. A question or two set him talking without any reticence apparently.

Time seemed to have lost half its meaning for him. He could not fix how long he and his master had been away from England; many years was all he could say. They had traveled much in South America, latterly in the wilds of Patagonia. There they had fallen into the hands of savages, and for a long time were not sure of their lives from hour to hour. Always Mr.

Hardiman seemed able to impress their captors that he was a dangerous man to kill; fooled them, in fact, until they came to consider him a G.o.d.

Master and man were presently lodged in a temple, and were witnesses of some horrible rites which they dared not interfere with. Finally, at a great feast, Hardiman succeeded in convincing them that he was their national and all-powerful deity, and that he had come to give them victory over all their enemies. By his command the wooden figure of one of their G.o.ds was taken from the temple, and, together with two curious drums used for religious purposes, and other sacred things, was carried through the forest to a certain spot which Hardiman indicated. The whole company was then to go back three days' march, spend seven days in religious feasting, and return. In the meanwhile he and his servant must be left quite alone with these sacred things.

"I suppose they returned," Bennett went on, "but they did not find us.

They did not find anything. The spot my master had fixed upon was within a day's march of help. We set out as soon as those devils had left us, and, having got a.s.sistance, my master would go back and fetch the wooden figure and the other things. They are in the cases in this s.h.i.+p."

"What was the main object of your master's travels?" I asked.

"He was writing a book about tribes and their customs."

"And he took a great interest in stones and bits of rock?"