The Orange-Yellow DiamondFletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
General
The Orange-Yellow Diamond
Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
Detective and mystery stories; Diamonds -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
Lauriston opened the volume, to reveal leaves of old vellum, covered
with beautiful fine writing. He had sufficient knowledge of foreign
languages to know what he was looking at.
"That's Spanish!" he said. "An old Spanish manuscript--and I should say
it's worth a rare lot of money. How could it have come here?"
Melky took the old volume out of Lauriston's hands, and put it away in
a corner cupboard.
"Ah, just so, mister!" he said. "But we'll keep that question to
ourselves--for awhile. Don't you say nothing to the police about that
there old book--I'll give Zillah the tip. More hangs round that than we
know of yet. Now look here!--there'll be the opening of the inquest
tomorrow. You be careful! Take my tip and don't let 'em get more out of
you than's necessary. I'll go along with you. I'm going to stop here
tonight--watch-dog, you know. Mrs. Goldmark and another friend's going
to be here as well, so Zillah'll have company. And I say, Zillah wants
a word with you--stop here, and I'll send her down."
Lauriston presently found himself alone with Zillah in the little
parlour. She looked at him silently, with eyes full of anxiety: he
suddenly realized that the anxiety was for himself.
"Don't!" he said, moving close to her and laying his hand on her arm.
"I'm not afraid!"
Zillah lifted her large dark eyes to his.
"Those rings?" she said. "You'll be able to account for them? The
police, oh, I'm so anxious about you!"
"The rings are mine!" he exclaimed. "It doesn't matter what the police
say or think, or do, either--at least, it shan't matter. And--you're
not to be anxious I've got a good friend coming from Scotland--Melky
told you I'd had two lots of good news tonight, didn't he?"
A moment later Lauriston was in the street--conscious that, without a
word spoken between them, he and Zillah had kissed each other. He went
away with a feeling of exaltation--and he only laughed when he saw a
man detach himself from a group on the opposite side of the street and
saunter slowly after him. Let the police shadow him--watch his lodgings
all night, if they pleased--he had something else to think of. And
presently, not even troubling to look out of his window to see if there
was a watcher there, he went to bed, to dream of Zillah's dark eyes.
But when morning came, and Lauriston realized that a fateful day was
before him, his thoughts were not quite so rosy. He drew up his
blind--there, certainly was a man pacing the opposite sidewalk.
Evidently, he was not to escape surveillance; the official eye was on
him! Supposing, before the day was out, the official hand was on him,
too?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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