The Missing Link Part 23

Nickie greeted his brother William with chastened melancholy, his manner towards his sister-in-law was courteous and kindly. He talked of reformation and a new life, of the honourable and onerous position he now occupied in a reputable Sydney business, and of his approaching marriage with an excellent, middle-aged, maiden lady of means. Deftly he worked round to a tall, aristocratic woman who had appeared a Mary Queen of Scots at the memorable fancy-dress ball at Whitecliff.

Brother William groaned, sister Jean sat up very straight, and sniffed ominously. "The creature!" she said.

"That woman was no friend of ours, Nicholas," said brother William, hastily.

"I met her in your house," said Nicholas, "and from a brief conversation I had I was deeply interested. It has occurred to me lately that if she still holds the same views she would be of vast a.s.sistance to my firm in a transaction we are meditating."

"Have nothing to do with her," cried William. "The creature was an adventuress; she worked her way into our confidence with trickery and fraud, presenting herself in society here as a lady of t.i.tle. It was afterwards proved that she had come to the country as the companion of an infamous scamp who at that very time was serving a sentence of seven years for attempted burglary and firing on the police. The woman disappeared shortly after the occasion you mention. She left the country, I imagine. At any rate, the police were pursuing her for some time for pa.s.sing valueless cheques. Please do not mention her name in this house; it awakens painful recollections, Nicholas."

Mrs. William sniffed more significantly than before. "Williams cashed one of those cheques," she said bitterly, with a venomous glance at her lord that told volumes.

Nicholas recognised in that moment that the prospect of an easy, well-clothed, well-fed, middle age at the expense of Mary Queen of Scots was out of the question. He consoled himself to some small extent by borrowing ten pounds from brother William after dinner.

Mr. Crips employed himself on the following day reading up the murder case in back numbers of the Age in the newspaper annex of the Public Library. He had to read a great deal of superfluous matter, and of many idle schemes and excursions on the part of the police before he came upon an illuminating little item in the shape of a casual bit of testimony from a friend of the dead man. The friend explained that the diamond dealer always carried in a small leather bag in his breast pocket a fine a.s.sortment of paste brilliants, with the deliberate intention of deceiving thieves who might attack him at any time. His idea was that the thieves would seize this case and make off without prosecuting a further search. But the murderer, whoever he was, was not content with the false stones; he had secured 5,000 worth of pure diamonds!

The story of the paste jewels was not repeated, and n.o.body seemed to have found any significance in it. At this late hour Nicholas Crips discovered so much meaning in it that he went out into the wide Domain to be alone among the trees to think it over. His thoughts came back always to the crucial point.

"I got the paste brilliants," he muttered. "She got the real diamonds.

She had them about her when I entered. She knew of the carbons, and she stalled me off with them. Lord, what a mug I was!"

Even in his great bitterness of spirit Nicholas could not help admiring the woman who had so completely sold him, and raising his hand in a mock salute, he said aloud:

"Mary Queen of Scots You're a DAISY!!"

From Prince's Bridge that night Mr. Crips emptied a small bag of glittering mock diamonds into the river, and, two days later, he looked over the rail of an out going steamer, watching Australia receding in the distance, and, to his fertile imagination, the outline on the horizon took the shape of a gallows with a pendant noose.

THE END