Part 6 (2/2)

”Why, there is no story to it particularly. Once a mistake had been made and the other time the real thief was detected by accident a year later.

In both cases only one or two of us knew what had happened.”

De Gollyer had a similar incident to recall. Steingall, after reflection, related another that had happened to a friend.

”Of course, of course, my dear gentlemen,” said Quinny impatiently, for he had been silent too long, ”you are glorifying commonplaces. Every crime, I tell you, expresses itself in the terms of the picture puzzle that you feed to your six-year-old. It's only the variation that is interesting. Now quite the most remarkable turn of the complexities that can be developed is, of course, the well-known instance of the visitor at a club and the rare coin. Of course every one knows that? What?”

Rankin smiled in a bored, superior way, but the others protested their ignorance.

”Why, it's very well known,” said Quinny lightly.

”A distinguished visitor is brought into a club--dozen men, say, present, at dinner, long table. Conversation finally veers around to curiosities and relics. One of the members present then takes from his pocket what he announces as one of the rarest coins in existence--pa.s.ses it around the table. Coin travels back and forth, every one examining it, and the conversation goes to another topic, say the influence of the automobile on domestic infelicity, or some other such asininely intellectual club topic--you know? All at once the owner calls for his coin.

”The coin is nowhere to be found. Every one looks at every one else.

First they suspect a joke. Then it becomes serious--the coin is immensely valuable. Who has taken it?

”The owner is a gentleman--does the gentlemanly idiotic thing of course, laughs, says he knows some one is playing a practical joke on him and that the coin will be returned to-morrow. The others refuse to leave the situation so. One man proposes that they all submit to a search. Every one gives his a.s.sent until it comes to the stranger. He refuses, curtly, roughly, without giving any reason. Uncomfortable silence--the man is a guest. No one knows him particularly well--but still he is a guest. One member tries to make him understand that no offense is offered, that the suggestion was simply to clear the atmosphere, and all that sort of bally rot, you know.

”'I refuse to allow my person to be searched,' says the stranger, very firm, very proud, very English, you know, 'and I refuse to give my reason for my action.'

”Another silence. The men eye him and then glance at one another. What's to be done? Nothing. There is etiquette--that magnificent inflated balloon. The visitor evidently has the coin--but he is their guest and etiquette protects him. Nice situation, eh?

”The table is cleared. A waiter removes a dish of fruit and there under the ledge of the plate where it had been pushed--is the coin. Ba.n.a.l explanation, eh? Of course. Solutions always should be. At once every one in profuse apologies! Whereupon the visitor rises and says:

”'Now I can give you the reason for my refusal to be searched. There are only two known specimens of the coin in existence, and the second happens to be here in my waistcoat pocket.'”

”Of course,” said Quinny with a shrug of his shoulders, ”the story is well invented, but the turn to it is very nice--very nice indeed.”

”I did know the story,” said Steingall, to be disagreeable; ”the ending, though, is too obvious to be invented. The visitor should have had on him not another coin, but something absolutely different, something destructive, say, of a woman's reputation, and a great tragedy should have been threatened by the casual misplacing of the coin.”

”I have heard the same story told in a dozen different ways,” said Rankin.

”It has happened a hundred times. It must be continually happening,”

said Steingall.

”I know one extraordinary instance,” said Peters, who up to the present, secure in his climax, had waited with a professional smile until the big guns had been silenced. ”In fact, the most extraordinary instance of this sort I have ever heard.”

”Peters, you little rascal,” said Quinny with a sidelong glance, ”I perceive you have quietly been letting us dress the stage for you.”

”It is not a story that will please every one,” said Peters, to whet their appet.i.te.

”Why not?”

”Because you will want to know what no one can ever know.”

”It has no conclusion then?”

”Yes and no. As far as it concerns a woman, quite the most remarkable woman I have ever met, the story is complete. As for the rest, it is what it is, because it is one example where literature can do nothing better than record.”

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