IV
There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vagueimpulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his sitting-roomunannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me, over a Carcellamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some object which he heldin his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly, thrust his hand intohis breast pocket, and turned to me with a face crimson with confusion.
"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negativeprotestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, asif a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherentwords, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept hisliquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied withmy own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," Icontinued. "Simon, she told me wonderful things to-night, or ratherwas the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get adiamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my lipswhen Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me savagely, and,rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons hung on the wall,caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously before him.
"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No!you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with thatdemon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me, I am brave! Youcan not make me fear!"
All this, uttered in a loud voice, trembling with excitement, astoundedme. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges ofSimon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure him.
"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you mean.I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific problem,to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the size I justmentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during the evening,nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What can be the meaningof this outburst? If you happen to have a set of valuable diamonds inyour possession, you need fear nothing from me. The diamond which Irequire you could not possess; or, if you did possess it, you would notbe living here."
Something in my tone must have completely reassured him, for hisexpression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,combined however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he was at certainmoments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself inincoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as theycame.
He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and endeavored,with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.
All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomedto analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined toprobe the mystery to the bottom.
"Simon," I said gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle ofBurgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vougeot_ downstairs,fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Cote d'Or.Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
"With all my heart," answered Simon smilingly.
I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a famousvintage, that of 1848, a year when war and wine throve together, and itspure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed vitality to the system.By the time we had half finished the second bottle, Simon's head, whichI knew was a weak one, had begun to yield, while I remained calm asever, only that every draught seemed to send a flush of vigor throughmy limbs. Simon's utterance became more and more indistinct. He took tosinging French _chansons_ of a not very moral tendency. I rose suddenlyfrom the table just at the conclusion of one of those incoherent verses,and, fixing my eyes on him with a quiet smile, said, "Simon, I havedeceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You may as well befrank with me. Mrs. Vulpes--or rather, one of her spirits--told me all."
He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to fadeaway, and he made a movement toward the weapon that he had a short timebefore laid down, I stopped him with my hand.
"Monster!" he cried passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? Youshall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell meall about it."
The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestnessthat I was entirely mistaken--that I was intoxicated; then asked me toswear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. Ipledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, andhands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from hisbreast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered intoa thousand prismatic arrows as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond thatglittered in the case! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glancethat this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon withwonder and--must I confess it?--with envy. How could he have obtainedthis treasure? In reply to my questions, I could just gather fromhis drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence wasaffected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engagedin diamond-washing in Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete adiamond, but, instead of informing his employers, had quietly watchedthe negro until he saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up andfled with it, but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose ofit publicly--so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract toomuch attention to its owner's antecedents--and he had not been ableto discover any of those obscure channels by which such matters areconveyed away safely. He added that, in accordance with orientalpractice, he had named his diamond with the fanciful title of "The Eyeof Morning."
While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamondattentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the gloriesof light ever imagined or described seemed to pulsate in its crystallinechambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was exactly one hundredand forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence. The hand of destinyseemed in it. On the very evening when the spirit of Leeuwenhoekcommunicates to me the great secret of the microscope, the pricelessmeans which he directs me to employ start up within my easy reach! Idetermined, with the most perfect deliberation, to possess myself ofSimon's diamond.
I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his glass, and calmlyrevolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate sofoolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which mustinterfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to betaken--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a little peddlingJew in comparison with the interests of science? Human beings are takenevery day from the condemned prisons to be experimented on by surgeons.This man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal, a robber, and Ibelieved on my soul a murderer. He deserved death quite as much as anyfelon condemned by the laws: why should I not, like government,contrive that his punishment should contribute to the progress of humanknowledge?
The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.There stood upon the mantelpiece a bottle half full of French laudanum.Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just restored tohim, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his glass. In aquarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket inwhich he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I laid himso that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed myself ofthe Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other Idiscovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality ofthe heart. It was essential that all the asp
ects of his death shouldlead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle atwhich it was probable that the weapon, if leveled by Simon's own hand,would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up tothe hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsivethrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue fromhis throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble sent up bya diver when it reaches the surface of the water; he turned half roundon his side, and, as if to assist my plans more effectually, his righthand, moved by some mere spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of thecreese, which it remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity.Beyond this there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume,paralyzed the usual nervous action. He must have died instantly.
There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that allsuspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the houseto Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be found in themorning _locked on the in-side_. How to do this, and afterward escapemyself? Not by the window; that was a physical impossibility. Besides,I was determined that the windows _also_ should be found bolted. Thesolution was simple enough. I descended softly to my own room fora peculiar instrument which I had used for holding small slipperysubstances, such as minute spheres of glass, etc. This instrument wasnothing more than a long, slender hand-vise, with a very powerful gripand a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to theshape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in thelock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through the keyhole,from the outside, and so lock the door. Previously, however, to doingthis, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almostalways burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied somemore laudanum into Simon's glass--having first removed from it alltraces of wine--cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottlesaway with me. If traces of two persons drinking had been found in theroom, the question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second?Besides, the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me.The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, incase of a _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally would be thathe first intended to poison himself, but, after swallowing a little ofthe drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed his mind fromother motives, and chose the dagger. These arrangements made, I walkedout, leaving the gas burning, locked the door with my vise, and went tobed.
Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning--the light streamingon the dark landing from under the door--peeped through the keyhole andsaw Simon on the bed.
She gave the alarm. The door was burst open, and the neighborhood was ina fever of excitement.
Every one in the house was arrested, myself included. There was aninquest; but no clew to his death beyond that of suicide could beobtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his friendsthe preceding week that seemed to point to self-destruction. Onegentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that "he was tiredof life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when paying him his lastmonth's rent, remarked that "he should not pay him rent much longer."All the other evidence corresponded--the door locked inside, theposition of the corpse, the burned papers. As I anticipated, no oneknew of the possession of the diamond by Simon, so that no motive wassuggested for his murder. The jury, after a prolonged examination,brought in the usual verdict, and the neighborhood once more settleddown to its accustomed quiet.