Part 75 (2/2)
”While Frank Lamotte felt tolerably sanguine of winning the heiress of Wardour, the Wardour jewels were left unmolested. But when a rival came into the field, they determined to have the jewels, even if they lost the heiress.
”Accordingly they planned the robbery and the elopement, and you all know the afterpart.
”Miss Wardour, you once offered a reward for the arrest of the robbers who invaded Wardour Place, _not_ to recover your diamonds, but for the sake of justice. It is for the sake of justice and for the future safety of peaceable citizens that I have run the Diamond Coterie to earth. For, be it known to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Miss Constance Wardour, like the wise young lady she is, took her jewels to an expert, one fine day, long ago, and had them all duplicated in paste; and while Jasper Lamotte and his clique were industriously carrying into safe hiding these paste diamonds, the real Wardour jewels were reposing safely in the vaults of a city bank, and they repose there safely still!
”When Jasper Lamotte went to the city, two days before the killing of Burrill, he went to dispose of some of those paste jewels; and, not until then, did he learn how the heiress of Wardour had outwitted him.
”Miss Wardour, the career of the Diamond Coterie is at an end.
”Old Ezras has long been under our eye. Last night I sent a telegram, which will cause his instant arrest; and there are enough charges against him to insure him a life sentence, had he yet seventy years to live.
”John Burrill has pa.s.sed beyond our reach. The news of his murder frustrated my nicely laid plans for his arrest, and turned my mind for some time from the Diamond Coterie to the task of clearing Sir Clifford.
”Frank Lamotte, too, with all his sin and selfishness, has pa.s.sed before a higher tribunal.
”There remains only Jerry Belknap and Jasper Lamotte.
”To Jerry Belknap, I have promised protection--not because he deserves the same, but because in no other way could I avail myself of his services; and, to make my chain of evidence complete, I needed his testimony. He will go out to the frontier, and never appear again in New York.
”And now, perhaps, you can comprehend why I brought that charge of perjury against Jasper Lamotte. For his wife's sake, for his unhappy daughter's sake, for the sake of Evan Lamotte, who implored me, while going to give himself up to save another, that I would not let further disgrace bow his mother's head to the dust. For the sake of these unfortunate victims, I would let Jasper Lamotte go free, so far as we are concerned. The charge of perjury is enough for W----. The officers have chosen not to place him in confinement, so, if Jasper Lamotte is suddenly missed from among us, who can be questioned or blamed?
”I have acted in this matter solely on my own responsibility.
”I have seen Jasper Lamotte, and I gave him two alternatives to choose from. He could remain and be arrested as the head and front of the Diamond Coterie, or he could take pa.s.sage on board the first s.h.i.+p bound for Australia, to remain there the rest of his natural life. He chose the latter, and I have appointed my agent, 'Smith, the book peddler,' as his guardian, to see that he carries out his contract to the letter.
”And now there is one thing more:
”After Burrill's death, Jasper and Frank Lamotte made a search for certain papers supposed to have been upon the person of the dead man; they never found them, for the reason that I, as Brooks, had relieved Burrill of the care of these same papers, weeks before, subst.i.tuting for them blanks, which no doubt, Burrill had hidden somewhere, in one of his fits of drunken caution.
”These papers define distinctly such portions of the Lamotte property as in reality belonged to Burrill; and if I am not mistaken in Mrs. Lamotte and her daughter, they will wish no share in it. I will put these papers into your hands, Mr. O'Meara, to be held for future action.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
AFTER THE DRAMA ENDED.
”Clifford,” says the heiress of Wardour, standing beside her lover, one winter day, not long after the extinction of the Diamond Coterie, ”Clifford I have been to Mapleton to-day, for the first time since--”
She pauses abruptly, and her lover draws her closer to his side, with all his olden a.s.surance s.h.i.+ning in the eyes he bends down upon her.
”Since the drama ended,” he finishes. ”You have been to Mapleton, beloved! tell me about it.”
”There's something I wish to tell you, Clifford; something that in full, Mr. Bathurst generously kept out of his story when he told us the rest; something that is known as it is only to Mrs. Lamotte, Sybil, Evan, Mr.
Belknap, Mr. Bathurst, and myself, but which I think I had better tell you now.”
<script>