Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 64: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

854 The thick air and the coming night had made the twilight like night, and she looked like a flat, oil painting. He spread. out his hands with a hopeless gesture. ‘It’s no use,” he said. ‘“ Nothing can come of talk between us about Pearsley. I had hoped that we might come to know each other, for you have made me happier than I can tell you. I suppose that I shail never see you again, and that I must even be on my guard against you.” ‘““ Pouf!” she said with a gentle laugh. “It is always so with a boy. He thinks wherever the street turns, it is the end. If you will sit down again, my big, melancholy friend, I will tell why I am so interest’ in the soldier Pearsley, and his diamonds. ‘““T should say my diamonds, for they are mine. I have tol’ youmy name. You have been in France?” “No, not since I was a child.” ‘“ Then you have never heard my name, st. Alarye” ‘“No.” He spoke apologetically, for in spite of his shock and his suspicion, there - was that in her quiet manner that told him it was a name worth knowing. “It is an old name in France and an honored one. There is a chdteau where I live’ as a child. It is near the Luxembourg border. In 1914 the war comes, and my family go to Paris. They do not know how long it will last, but they do not think very long. They will come back, and in the meantime those six diamonds which have been in my family for over three hundred year’, they will be safer put up in a little turret, under a roof tile, than in Paris. “ My father, although he may think the war will be over soon, remembers 1870 when the Germans come into Paris, and will take no chances. The turret is of stone, and it will resist fire. He is prepar’ for that. It may be one year, it may be ten, but some time he will come back and there will be his jewels. “ But he did not know about these Eng- lish signallers. In 1914 the British army is near my chdteau. They send their sig- nallers up into that turret, and there they find these six diamonds. And they have kept them since. ‘After the war, sir, I come back to my < ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. old home. It is there—the turret, al- though it is much battere’, and the rest of the house ”—she spread her hands—“ it is nothing. My father is dead of a broken heart, my brother in battle, and my sister is kille’ by Big Bertha. She was a devout, my sister, and she is struck in her church. “For a long time I do not know what to do. I find the tile is broken, and I find there is a small box there, and wires, and on them are the broad arrow. -That shows they are English. ‘““My people tell me that no one has been in the turret since the English go up there early in the war. So I think they must have discovere’ the diamonds, and have taken them. “T go to Cartier in Paris and I tell him my trouble, but he shake his head and say it is a hard trail to follow. But he will do it. For years nothing happens, then sud- denly {I hear a soldier has come into a small shop in London and tol’ them he has six diamonds which he will sell. He is followe’ to Woolwich, and the detective, he learns from other soldiers the name of this man. It is Pearsley. “‘ In the meantime my little money is go- ing, until I have nothing but the gems. If I can get them, I shall live in comfort until I shall die, but if I do not, I shall either have to marry, sir, or work, or die. I think I shall die before I work, and work before I marry. ‘So I have come to this place two weeks ago, and I have no way of finding Pearsley. I ask at the gate, and they say he is on leave. And they are very rude to me. “So I say to myself that I must find me a soldier who is mot rude, and who can make M. Pearsley listen to reason. I have foun’ my soldier, but elas, I have lost Pearsley.”’ A lamplighter came suddenly out of the dusk, and kindled the lamp above her head. In that light her face was invisible, but the crossed hands were eloquent. Morgan bent his head in thought and when the man had gone he said: ‘ But why did you not go to an officer? Why did you not go to the general? He would have sent for Pearsley and forced him to give them up.” ‘Hah! What an innocent! Do you Eomicwdooks CO