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“Damned freakish monstrosity!” Trounce yelled. He took ahandkerchief from his pocket and wiped the moisture from hisface.
“That's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen!”Burton exclaimed. “I'd read that the Technologists wereexperimenting with insect shells but I had no idea they'dprogressed so far!”
“You regard that as progress?” Trounce objected. He waved hishat at the milieu that was slowly emerging from the thi
“Humph!” Burton agreed. “We certainly seem to be entangled in aprofusion of mismatched machineries.”
“A profusion? Call it whatever you will, Captain Burton, but thefact of the matter is that if the dashed scientists don't slow downand plan ahead with something at least resembling foresight andresponsibility, London is going to grind to a complete standstill,mark my words!”
“I don't disagree. Come on. Let's move along. What was it youwere saying? About the suspect?”
“Suspect? Oh, Brundleweed. Yes. Well, the obvious safecracker tolook at would be Marcus Dexter-there's no strongbox he can't openand he's as cu
A one-legged beggar swung himself on crutches directly intoTrounce's path. He pleaded in a throaty voice for a ha'pe
The detective glowered at him, told him to move along, butpressed a pe
“I'm almost inclined to run with the diamond merchant's theory,”he muttered.
“Brundleweed has a theory?”
“Of sorts. He believes a ghost took the diamonds.”
Burton stopped and stared at his companion in amazement.
“A ghost?”
“Yes. He's fooled himself into believing that he saw a phantomwoman that night.”
“You don't believe him, surely?”
“No, of course not. He probably dozed off and dreamt it.Except-”
“What?”
“The friend of Francois Garnier; the one he gave two of theblack diamonds to-”
“Jean Pelletier.”
“Yes. I contacted the Surete in Paris. They confirmed that hedied from a heart attack.”
“So?”
“So he was found in his lodgings, the room was locked from theinside, and the windows were closed. Yet, for some reason, his facewas frozen into an expression of sheer terror. The detective Ispoke to actually used the words 'like he'd seen a ghost.’”
“Intriguing.”
“Hmm. Anyway, let's hear what Brundleweed has to say. C'mon,shake a leg.”
They arrived at the shop a few moments later and entered.
Edwin Brundleweed looked up from his counter, which was securedbehind metal bars. He was a stooped, middle-aged gentleman, with along brown pointed beard drooping from his narrow chin. His headwas prematurely bald, his lips thin, and thick-lensed spectacleswere perched on the bridge of his hooked nose.
“Why, Detective Inspector! How very nice to see you! Is therenews?”
“I'm afraid not, Mr. Brundleweed. This is Captain Sir RichardBurton. He's the gentleman who discovered the robbery here.”
“Then I'm very much in your debt, sir,” the dealer said toBurton. “If it weren't for you, the rest of the diamonds would havebeen lost too and I'd have been put out of business. Pray, come in,gentlemen.”
Brundleweed moved to a door set in the bars at the side of thecounter, unlocked it, and stepped back to allow his visitorsthrough. He relocked it behind them.
“I have a fresh pot of tea just brewed and a new tin of custardcreams. Would you care to join me?”
Burton and Trounce answered in the affirmative. A few minuteslater, they were seated with their host around a table.
“Mr. Brundleweed,” Burton said, “I'm puzzled. Why would themystery person who replaced the Choir Stones with fakes take onlythose gems and not the others you had in your safe?”
The king's agent knew from Babbage that the missing gemspossessed special qualities but he wondered who else might be awareof the fact.
“Good question!” came the reply. “I believe the culprit must bea specialist, a collector, a man who has interest in diamonds onlyfor their history rather than for their financial worth. Do youknow their background?”
“Only that they were discovered after they started ‘singing’ in1837, were recently taken from a temple in Cambodia by LieutenantFrancois Garnier, and there were originally seven of them, but hegave two away. Those two subsequently went missing after the deathof their owner.”
“That's correct. However, there's much more to the tale, andit's this that makes the remaining gems so eminently collectable.Black diamonds aren't the same as the white variety; they're notfound in diamond fields, such as we have in South Africa andCanada. Current thinking posits that they fall from the sky asaerolites.”
“Yes, I've come across that theory.”
“According to an obscure occult manuscript-dating from thesixteenth century, if I remember rightly-which is quoted inSchuyler's De Mythen van Verloren Halfedelstenen, a large aerolitethat fell in prehistoric times broke into three pieces. One piecelanded in the West, another in Africa, and the third in the FarEast. They are known as the Eyes of Naga.”
“Three eyes?”
“Yes. Three eyes. Peculiar, isn't it? I'm afraid I have nounderstanding of the Dutch language and wasn't able to read theSchuyler volume myself-my information came from a summary inLegendary Gemstones by Jerrold Wilson-but I believe the author goeson to recount two myths: a South American one which tells how theAmazon sprang into being when a large black diamond fell from thesky; and a Cambodian one about a lost continent in which a greatriver flowed from the spot where a black stone fell. He speculatesthat a similar story probably exists in the African interiorconcerning the source of the Nile.”
“It does!” Burton exclaimed. “While I was in the central LakeRegions, in a town named Kazeh, I was told that the fabledMountains of the Moon supposedly mark the outer rim of a craterwhere an aerolite fell, giving rise to that river.”
“It can't be a coincidence, can it?” Brundleweed said. “Isuppose the mythical shooting star really did fall. Anyway, theChoir Stones are supposedly the fragments of the Far Eastern Eye.If that's true, then the original diamond must have beenconsiderably larger than the Koh-i-noor.”
“Hmm,” Burton grunted. “The Naga. I've encountered references tothem. They equate to the Devanagari of Hindu mythology;seven-headed reptilian beings who established an undergroundcivilisation long before Darwin's apes learned how to walkupright.”
“Ah, well, there you are,” Brundleweed commented,noncommittally.
“I shall have to look into that,” Burton murmured thoughtfully.“What of the African and South American diamonds?”
“Not a trace,” the dealer answered. “Although there are vaguesuggestions that, seventy years or so ago, an English aristocratdiscovered an enormous black diamond in Chile. However, I very muchdoubt the veracity of the claim, for no such diamond has ever beenseen, let alone cut and placed on the market.”
“The aristocrat's name?”
“I have no idea, Captain. As I said, it's the vaguest ofrumours.”
“Hmm. And what of Francois Garnier? Why did he decide to sellhis collection?”
Brundleweed snorted scornfully: “Believe it or not, he claimedthat they emanate a deleterious influence. Tosh and piffle, ofcourse!”
“Did you have any prospective buyers?”
“No, but my advertisement in the trade newspaper was onlypublished a couple of days before the robbery. I received just asingle enquiry, from a chap who came into the shop to confirm thatI was putting the stones on the market, but he was one of thosedandified Rake-ish sorts, and though he expressed an interest, hedidn't leave a name or address, and I haven't heard from himsince.”