The Crime Club. Frank Froest

      Forrester made a disclaiming gesture. ‘The records would have been searched sooner or later in any event, and we’d have hit on you. It would have taken a day or two though, and you’d have got a start.’

      ‘And you don’t know how it is I’m still not in prison, and no one knows I’ve been at large for a year?’

      ‘No, not altogether,’ admitted the chief detective carelessly. ‘There’s been a change of identity and big bribery somewhere. That’s for the prison people to explain.’ He was careful not to ask any questions.

      ‘Well,’ said Crake slowly, ‘I can help you out on that. This is what happened: When that Jezebel there’—he jerked his thumb towards the door—‘sold me at the trial, I swore I’d get quits with her, if I swung for it.’ He spat out the words in an even voice that made them ten times more venomous. ‘Mark you, in the time that I knew her she had bled me for thousands. Then when the other man turned up, she had to get rid of me—and the Old Bailey was the method she chose. I don’t know if any of you gentlemen know what hate is—real, white-hot, flaming hatred that eats a man’s vitals out,’—he choked a little—‘but never mind that. My first idea was to work an escape, for I knew my sentence would not be a light one. I had plenty of money—never mind how I kept it out of other people’s clutches.

      ‘There was a man sentenced the same day as myself to two years. There was a certain similarity between us in height and build and physical characteristics—I don’t mean that we were in any way doubles, but it was enough to give me an idea when I learned that, after the rising of the Court, we were to be taken to a fresh prison. In the van I got my chance. I offered him a thousand a year to exchange sentences and identities with me—seven thousand pounds in all. He fell in with the idea, and when we descended in the prison yard he was John Crake and I—I was Isaac Wells. That was his name.

      ‘I had forgotten one thing. When my term—or rather Wells’s term—was drawing to a close, my finger-prints were to be taken as a matter of ordinary routine to be sent to Scotland Yard for comparison. That staggered me at first, but I was not done. My prison record had been good—and that and the fact that I was well-educated caused me now and again to be chosen for work in the office. I watched and waited, and pure accident helped me at last. I managed to lay my hands for a few seconds on the prints the day they were to be sent to London. And the prints that went up were those of the real Wells.

      ‘I wanted to be free—partly for the sake of freedom, mainly to get even with Madeline Fulford. Prison had altered my appearance in some respects, and I did what I could myself. I won’t trouble you with my adventures in tracking her down. I found the man for whom I had been sacrificed had committed suicide in Paris, and from there I followed her all over the world, sometimes going on a blind, sometimes getting a hint here and there that satisfied me I should get her sooner or later. I heard at last that she had married de Reszke, and I reached New York a day before they sailed for England.

      ‘There was a vacant berth on the Columbia, and I took it. I kept out of her sight, but I watched for my chance like a cat. She never seemed to be alone, and it was not my purpose to take any risk of involving myself if it could be avoided. Then there was the row in the smoking-room. That frightened me for a while, but when I saw that Mr Silvervale did not recognise me, I did not mind.

      ‘I was in the next carriage to her in the boat-train from Southampton to London, and my taxi-cab was close behind hers when she arrived at the Palatial. I took this room on the same floor as her suite—and you know the rest.’

      The scratching of a pencil as a detective who had followed Crake’s statement in shorthand put the finishing touches to his notes was the only sound for a few seconds after Crake had finished. The manager fished in his pocket and produced a letter which he handed to Forrester.

      ‘I forgot to give you this,’ he said. ‘It was left in the office early this morning. It is addressed to Mrs de Reszke.’

      Forrester broke the seal and read the letter, silently at first and then aloud:

      ‘MADAM,—You have no moral claim upon me since your admission yesterday that you are the infamous woman formerly known as Madeline Fulford. I then told you as plainly as possible that you need look to me no longer for support. I have now, however, thought the question over, and will allow you three thousand dollars per annum, paid quarterly, on condition, first, that you assume some other name than mine; secondly, that you make no attempt in future to molest or communicate with me either in person or by letter.

      ‘I shall instruct my lawyer that the foregoing payment is to be made to you. I sail for New York in two days’ time.

      ‘R. DE RESZKE.’

       IV

       THE MAKER OF DIAMONDS

      FLEETING twisted his watch-chain absently around his fingers till it cut the flesh.

      ‘They’re diamonds all right, all right,’ he said. ‘That’s the blazes of it.’

      Heldway smiled genially at the jeweller. ‘Where do I come in then? I don’t see what you’ve to complain about. You admit, yourself, there’s a fortune in it.’

      He spoke quietly, yet there was a subtle inflection of irony in his tone that caused the jeweller to scrutinise his face with suspicion. Somehow Heldway made him feel a fool, and Fleeting knew he was not a fool. He recognised himself—more, other men recognised him—as one of the keenest jewellers in Hatton Garden.

      Being a jeweller, he was one of the least credulous of men. It spoke for itself that he had called in Heldway. There were those at Scotland Yard who held Heldway in high esteem.

      ‘There’s a screw loose somewhere,’ he protested, releasing his chain and pushing out a pair of delicate hands. ‘I feel it. The thing’s too good to be true. Why, if I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d have sworn those diamonds came from Kimberley.’

      The detective-inspector shrugged his shoulders listlessly. ‘Ah, of course, an expert can always tell which mine a stone has come from.’

      Fleeting seethed inwardly. He was in a burning excitement, and the placidity of the other annoyed him. He did not consider that while his own agitation was to be attributed to the possibility of making a fortune beyond his wildest dreams, or losing a sum that would long cripple him, the detective had nothing to gain or lose.

      ‘What do you make of it?’ Fleeting demanded bluntly.

      Heldway slowly changed his position till his elbow rested on the mantelpiece. He seemed to be weighing the question. At last he spoke. ‘What it comes to is this: This man Vernet says he can make diamonds, and offers to sell a half-interest in his secret to you for a hundred thousand pounds. He gives a demonstration under the most stringent tests, and you fail to find out any fake. The diamonds are genuine. Now it seems to me one of two things—either Vernet can do what he says, or your precautions against trickery have not been effective.’

      ‘Hang it all!’ retorted Fleeting impatiently. ‘What more could I do? The room in which he works is here in my office. It was fitted up by firms whom I specified, according to his ideas, with a little charcoal furnace and certain chemical preparations. I did all the buying. Everything passed through my hands. It is impossible that he should have had any confederate among the workmen. When he has gone in to supervise the construction of the furnace, I have been with him, watching every movement. That he could have hid anything in the room is quite impossible.’

      ‘Have you seen him actually make these gems?’

      ‘No,’ admitted Fleeting. ‘I can’t very well expect him to lay his hand down till I have paid cash. It’s too big a thing to take chances on. Mind you, Vernet’s perfectly reasonable. He invited me to take precautions against trickery, and I have. Each time he goes into the laboratory