take no more risks than I can help, Mr. Hewitt. I have sent for you to get first the stones – afterwards the thief if you can. But first my property; you can perhaps find Denson and make him give it up rather than go to prison. That would be better than having him taken and imprisoned, and perhaps the stones put away safe all the time ready for him when he came out."
"Still, the police can do things that I can't," Hewitt interposed; "stop people leaving or landing at ports, and the like. I think we should see them."
Samuel was anxiously emphatic. "No, Mr. Hewitt," he said, "certainly not the police. There are reasons – no, not the police, Mr. Hewitt, at any rate, not till you have tried. I cannot haf the police – just yet."
Martin Hewitt shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said, "if those are your instructions, I'll do my best. And so you sent for me at once, as soon as you discovered the loss?"
"Yes, at once."
"Without telling anybody else?"
"I haf tolt nobody."
"Did you look about anywhere for Denson – in the street, or what not?"
"No – what was the good? He was gone; there was time for him to go miles."
"Very good. And speaking of time, let me judge how far he may have gone. How long were you kept waiting?"
"Two hours and a quarter, very near – within five minutes."
"By your watch?"
"Yes – I looked often, to see if it was so long waiting as it seemed."
"Very good. Do you happen to have a piece of Denson's writing about you?"
Samuel looked round him. "There's nothing about here," he said, "but perhaps we can find – oh here – here's a post-card." He took the card from his pocket, and gave it to Hewitt.
"There is nothing else to tell me, then?" queried Hewitt. "Are you sure that you have forgotten nothing that has happened since you first arrived —nothing at all?" There was meaning in the emphasis, and a sharp look in Hewitt's eyes.
"No, Mr. Hewitt," Samuel answered, hastily; "there is nothing else I can tell you."
"Then I will think it over at once. You had better go back quietly to your office, and think it over yourself, in case you have forgotten something; and I need hardly warn you to keep quiet as to what has passed between us – unless you tell the police. I think I shall take the liberty of a glance over Mr. Denson's office, and since his office boy still stays away, I will lend him my clerk for a little. He will keep his eyes open if any callers come, and his ears too. Wait while I fetch him."
II
It was at this point that my humble part in the case began, for Hewitt hurried first to my rooms.
"Brett," he exclaimed, "are you engaged this afternoon?"
"No – nothing important."
"Will you do me a small favour? I have a rather interesting case. I want a man watched for an hour or so, and I haven't a soul to do it. Kerrett may be known, and I am known. Besides, there is another job for Kerrett."
Of course, I expressed myself willing to do what I could.
"Capital," replied Hewitt. "Come along – you like these adventures, I know, or I wouldn't have asked you; and you know the dodges in this sort of observation. The man is one Samuel, a Jew, of 150 Hatton Garden, diamond dealer. I'll tell you more afterwards. Kerrett and I are going into the offices next door, and I want you to wait thereabout. Presently I will come downstairs with him and he will go away. An hour or so will be enough, probably."
I followed Hewitt downstairs. He took Kerrett with him and locked his office door. I saw them both disappear within the large new building, and I waited near a convenient postal pillar-box, prepared to seem very busy with a few old letters from my pocket until my man's back was turned.
In a very few minutes Hewitt reappeared, this time with a man – a Jew, obviously – whom I remembered having seen already at the door of that office more than an hour before, as I had passed on the way from the bookseller's at the corner. The man walked briskly up the street, and I, on the opposite side, did the same, a little in the rear.
He turned the corner, and at once slackened his pace and looked about him. He took a peep back along the street he had left, and then hailed a cab.
For a hundred yards or more I was obliged to trot, till I saw another cab drop its fare just ahead, and managed to secure it and give the cabman instructions to follow the cab in front, before it turned a corner. The chase was difficult, for the horse that drew me was a poor one, and half a dozen times I thought I had lost sight of the other cab altogether; but my cabman was better than his animal, and from his high perch he kept the chase in view, turning corners and picking out the cab ahead among a dozen others with surprising certainty. We went across Charing Cross Road by way of Cranborne Street, past Leicester Square, through Coventry Street and up the Quadrant and Regent Street. At Oxford Circus the Jew's cab led us to the left, and along Oxford Street we chased it past Bond Street end. Suddenly my cab pulled up with a jerk, and the driver spoke through the trapdoor. "That fare's getting down, sir," he said, "at the corner o' Duke Street."
I thrust a half-crown up through the hole and sprang out. "'E's crossing the road, sir," the cabman finally reported, and I hurried across the street accordingly.
The man I was watching was strikingly Jewish enough, and easy to distinguish in a crowd. I had almost overtaken him before he had gone a dozen yards up the northern end of Duke Street. He walked on into Manchester Square. There a small, neat brougham, with blinds drawn, was being driven slowly round the central garden. I saw Samuel walk hurriedly up to this brougham, which stopped as he approached. He stepped quickly into the carriage and shut the door behind him. The brougham resumed its slow progress, and I loitered, keeping it in view, though the blinds were drawn so close that it was impossible to guess who might be Samuel's companion, if he had one. I think I have said that when the Jew came to the office door with Hewitt I perceived that he was a man I had seen before that day. I was now convinced that I had also seen that same brougham, at the same time; but of this presently.
The carriage made one slow circuit, and then Samuel got out and shut the door quickly again. I took the precaution of turning my back and letting him overtake and pass me on his way back through Duke Street. At the end of the street he mounted an omnibus going east, and I took another seat in the same vehicle. The rest was uninteresting. He went direct to No. 150 Hatton Garden, and there remained. I read his name on the door-post among a score of others, and after a twenty-minutes' wait I returned to my rooms. I had no doubt that it was the meeting in the brougham that Hewitt wished reported, and I remembered his rule was never to watch a man a moment after the main object was secured.
Hewitt was out, and he did not return till after dusk. Then he came straightway to my rooms.
"Well, Brett," he said, "what's the report? As a matter of fact, Samuel is my client, as I shall explain presently. I don't like spying on a client, as a rule, but I was convinced that he was keeping something back from me, and there was something odd about his whole story. But what did you see?"
I told Hewitt the tale of my pursuit as I have told it here. "I came away," I concluded, "after it seemed that he was settled in his office for a bit. But there is another thing you should know. When he first came out with you I recognised him at once as a man I had seen at that same door a little after two o'clock – say a quarter past."
"Yes?"
