such as carrying the booty; and that the “family” was the time-honored expression for a gang of thieves.
“This was all on Wednesday, I understand,” said Hewitt. “Now tell me what happened on Thursday—the poisoning, or drugging, you know?”
“Well, sor, I was walking out, an’ toward the evenin’ I lost mesilf. Up comes a man, seemin’ly a sthranger, and shmacks me on the showldher. ‘Why, Mick!’ sez he; ‘it’s Mick Leamy, I du b’lieve!’
“‘I am that,’ sez I, ‘but you I do not know.’
“‘Not know me?’ sez he. ‘Why, I wint to school wid ye.’ An’ wid that he hauls me off to a bar, blarneyin’ and minowdherin’, an’ orders dhrinks.
“Can ye rache me a poipe-loight?’ sez he, an’ I turned to get ut, but, lookin’ back suddent, there was that onblushin’ thief av the warl’ tippin’ a paperful av phowder stuff into me glass.”
“What did you do?” Hewitt asked.
“I knocked the dhirty face av him, sor, an’ can ye blame me? A mane scutt, thryin’ for to poison a well-manin’ sthranger. I knocked the face av him, an’ got away home.”
“Now the next misfortune?”
“Faith, that was av a sort likely to turn out the last of all misfortunes. I wint that day to the Crystial Palace, bein’ dishposed for a little sphort, seein’ as I was new to London. Comin’ home at night, there was a juce av a crowd on the station platform, consekins of a late thrain. Sthandin’ by the edge av the platform at the fore end, just as thrain came in, some onvisible murdherer gives me a stupenjus drive in the back, and over I wint on the line, mid-betwixt the rails. The engine came up an’ wint half over me widout givin’ me a scratch, bekase av my centraleous situation, an’ then the porther-men pulled me out, nigh sick wid fright, sor, as ye may guess. A jintleman in the crowd sings out: ‘I’m a medical man!’ an’ they tuk me in the waitin’-room, an’ he investigated me, havin’ turned everybody else out av the room. There wuz no bones bruk, glory be! and the docthor-man he was tellin’ me so, after feelin’ me over, whin I felt his hand in me waistcoat pockut.
“‘An’ fwhat’s this, sor?’ sez I. ‘Do you be lookin’ for your fee that thief’s way?’
“He laffed, and said: ‘I want no fee from ye, me man, an’ I did but feel your ribs,’ though on me conscience he had done that undher me waistcoat already. An’ so I came home.”
“What did they do to you on Saturday?”
“Saturday, sor, they gave me a whole holiday, and I began to think less of things; but on Saturday night, in a dark place, two blayguards tuk me throat from behind, nigh choked me, flung me down, an’ wint through all me pockuts in about a quarter av a minut.”
“And they took nothing, you say?”
“Nothing, sor. But this mornin’ I got my worst dose. I was trapesing along distreshful an’ moighty sore, in a street just away off the Strand here, when I obsarved the docthor-man that was at the Crystial Palace station a-smilin’ an’ beckonin’ at me from a door.
“‘How are ye now?’ sez he. ‘Well,’ sez I, ‘I’m moighty sore an’ sad bruised,’ sez I. ‘Is that so?’ sez he. ‘Sthep in here.’ So I sthepped in, an’ before I could wink there dhropped a crack on the back av me head that sent me off as unknowledgable as a corrpse. I knew no more for a while, sor, whether half an hour or an hour, an’ thin I got up in a room av the place, marked ‘To Let.’ ‘Twas a house full av offices, by the same token, like this. There was a sore bad lump on me head—see ut, sor?—an’ the whole warl’ was shpinnin’ roun’ rampageous. The things out av me pockuts were lyin’ on the flure by me—all barrin’ the key av me room. So that the demons had been through me posseshins again, bad luck to ‘em.”
“You are quite sure, are you, that everything was there except the key?” Hewitt asked.
“Certin, sor? Well, I got along to me room, sick an’ sorry enough, an’ doubtsome whether I might get in wid no key. But there was the key in the open door, an’, by this an’ that, all the shtuff in the room—chair, table, bed, an’ all—was shtandin’ on their heads twisty-ways, an’ the bedclothes an’ every thin’ else; such a disgraceful stramash av conglomerated thruck as ye niver dhreamt av. The chist av drawers was lyin’ on uts face, wid all the dhrawers out an’ emptied on the flure. ‘Twas as though an arrmy had been lootin’, sor!”
“But still nothing was gone?”
“Nothin’, so far as I investigated, sor. But I didn’t shtay. I came out to spake to the polis, an’ two av them laffed at me—wan afther another!”
“It has certainly been no laughing matter for you. Now, tell me—have you anything in your possession—documents, or valuables, or anything—that any other person, to your knowledge, is anxious to get hold of!”
“I have not, sor—divil a document! As to valuables, thim an’ me is the cowldest av sthrangers.”
“Just call to mind, now, the face of the man who tried to put powder in your drink, and that of the doctor who attended to you in the railway station. Were they at all alike, or was either like anybody you have seen before?”
Leamy puckered his forehead and thought.
“Faith,” he said presently, “they were a bit alike, though one had a beard an’ the udther whiskers only.”
“Neither happened to look like Mr. Hollams, for instance?”
Leamy started. “Begob, but they did! They’d ha’ been mortal like him if they’d been shaved.” Then, after a pause, he suddenly added: “Holy saints! is ut the fam’ly he talked av?”
Hewitt laughed. “Perhaps it is,” he said. “Now, as to the man who sent you with the bag. Was it an old bag?”
“Bran’ cracklin’ new—a brown leather bag.”
“Locked?”
“That I niver thried, sor. It was not my consarn.”
“True. Now, as to this Mr. W. himself.” Hewitt had been rummaging for some few minutes in a portfolio, and finally produced a photograph, and held it before the Irishman’s eye. “Is that like him?” he asked.
“Shure it’s the man himself! Is he a friend av yours, sor?”
“No, he’s not exactly a friend of mine,” Hewitt answered, with a grim chuckle. “I fancy he’s one of that very respectable family you heard about at Mr. Hollams’. Come along with me now to Chelsea, and see if you can point out that house in Gold Street. I’ll send for a cab.”
He made for the outer office, and I went with him.
“What is all this, Hewitt?” I asked. “A gang of thieves with stolen property?”
Hewitt looked in my face and replied: “It’s the Quinton ruby!”
“What! The ruby? Shall you take the case up, then?”
“I shall. It is no longer a speculation.”
“Then do you expect to find it at Hollams’ house in Chelsea?” I asked.
“No, I don’t, because it isn’t there—else why are they trying to get it from this unlucky Irishman? There has been bad faith in Hollams’ gang, I expect, and Hollams has missed the ruby and suspects Leamy of having taken it from the bag.”
“Then who is this Mr. W. whose portrait you have in your possession?”
“See here!” Hewitt turned over a