THE KING'S DIAMOND.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 269, 2 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE KING'S DIAMOND.

Pay by day, stone by stone, the parcel had increased, and every one of the now splendid collection of gems represented not only so many pounds sterling in hard cash, when once successfully translated from the Kimberley compound and sorthouses to the outside world, but also many moments of desperate yet skilfully hidden anxiety, during which the fickle needle of fate had swayed to and fro, between two poles of fortune and ruin. Some men in Frank Ridley's position—and he was one of the most trusted sorters in the camp—would have taken the stones out one by one, or employed Kaffirs to take them from him after they had been searched, and pass them direct to one of the illicit dealers outside, but that was not his way. He had had no other confidant than his own conscience, not always an approving one, but, at any rate, one that would not give him away. To have taken the stones out one by one would have only multiplied the risk of discovery and ruin by the number of them, for the possession of a single illicit diamond would have meant disgrace and penal servitude just as cortainly as would the £20,000 or £30,000 worth of gems—the very pick of the Kimberley mine output for nearly six months past. So one afternoon he made up his mind that he had tempted tho fates far enough, and at G that evening he walked off to his lodgings with his heart in his mouth and a fortune in the lining of his somewhat shabby felt wideawake.

That night albeilt with some little fear and trembling, he permitted himself the luxury of a few minutes' examination of his plunder in bulk, and an estimate of its value—not to him, but to more fortunate men who should succeed in getting the parcel through safely to London or Amsterdam. If he could only do that himself he would never need to do another day'3 work in the world —but he was an employe, a sorter, and therefore a marked man, and the secret ramifications of the wonderful system which inclosed him and all with him as in a net were many and wide. No, that risk was too great, considering that he could now make £4OOO or £SOOO in an hour or so, and at the same time transfer all his risk and liability to some one else, and go back to his work with a light heart, and, in a certain sense a close conscience.

Yet there was one magnificent rose diamond, which must weigh from forty to fifty carat, which he would dearly have loved to see nicely cut and polished and glittering on the neck or in the hair of some well-loved some-one far away in old Carlisle; but he knew well enough that there was not another of its size and color in the world. The nearest to it was in the De Beers collection, and the mere pos session of it by any one but a monarch or a millionaire would mean just what his own possession of it meant, so there was no use thinking about that.

With something very like a sigh for the unattainable possibility of his so far successful theft, he tied up the gems in a bit of dirty rag and stuffed this into the toe of a dilapidated Wellington boot. Then he had a wash and a change, and went for a walk down town.

On his'was along Stockdale street he chanced to meet a well dressed, dapper-looking little man who nodded to him as one might do to a casual acquaintance, and said in a quick, sharp sort of tone, ' How now,Ridley 1 Going strong, eh V

' Pretty well Mr Muratti,' he replied, with a quick look up and down the street. ' Returns are looking up again. We've had some pretty good finds the last day or two.'

' Oh, glad to hear it, even from a man who wastes his opportunities as idiotically as you do. Anything particularly choice V ' Well, yes. Are you doing anything in secoud-hand boots just now Mr Muratti.'

It may here be conveniently explained that the gentleman with whom young Ridley had thus fallen into conversation was, in those days known in camp as Mickey Muratti. The wider world knows him now as Michael Muratti, M. L. A., and director of many important financial undertakings. J3ut in f hose days he was just an extremely clever man, a Jew of reputed Florentine ancestry, hut more recent and authentic East End extraction, who bad made his debut in Kiraberloy as a dealer in cheap jewellery and slop--ofr&t> outfits —after having wandered about picking up a living by the display of his juggling abilities—and who was now looked upon as one of the smartest and most successful ' operators' on the diamond fields.

Inspector Lipinski and some of his more trusted subordinates cherished certain suspicions aa to the scope of his operations, but so far his dealings had been blameless, at least so far as tangible evidence was concerned, added to which he had recently married an exceedingly clever and pretty wife, which meant much on the fields in those days.

Mr Muratti did not seem in the least annoyed by the apparent reference to his former comparatively humble means of livelihood. On the contrary he looked up with a quick glance at Ridley, and said with a smile of pleasant anticipation : ' Well, I haven't done anything in the old clo'line for some time now, but you know I'm always on for a trade. What's the figure V 1 Ten thousand.'

' I'll see you—l mean I'd like to see the goods before I say anythingto that. It's a big price for a pair of second hand boots, you know Mr Ridley. Still, lam glad to see that you're beginning to rue to a proper sense of your opportunities. When can I see the boots V

' I was thinking of taking them down to Tooley's to-morrow about this time to have them soled and heeled.'

'So you're on to that lay, are you 1 Well, you're not such a blighted idiot as I thought you were, Ridley; so I apologue. I shall be sending to Tooley's myself —but, look here, if wo mean business, what's the good of wasting time like that? Go and get your boots now and take them to Tooley's. He isn't shut, and he's got a pair of mine to mend. I'll be there in half an hour and if I take your parcel away with me instead of my own, well, what's that to anybody but you or me V It wasn't altogether a new device but it worked, and in the result Mr Muratti's valuation of the boots was so far satisfactory that about two hours later Frank Ridley went home with a cheque for £2,500 and an I O U for a like amount in his pocket, and a pair of another man's boots under his arm, neatly wrapped up in a copy of tho Diamond Fields Independent. The cheque was on Lloyd's bank, London, and was payable not to Frank Ridley, but to Miss Alice Ransome. The IO U will be determined later on. Meanwhile Mr Frank Ridley's thoughts turned homeward and mingled with loving memories and fond anticipations.

That same night, between 11 and 12 o'clock, Mr Muratti had a visit from a man of his own people, a youth of some 21 summers, whose life had so far been mostly winter. Not many of the seed of Abraham run to waste, at any rate in the financial sense, but Joshua Mosenstein, known for short in camp as Jossed Mo, had somehow managed to do so.

He was distantly related to Mickey Muratti, and again and again that rising financier had, with the traditional generosity of his people to their kindred, metaphorically taken him out of the gutter and set him on his feet on the pavement. The subject of their interview was closely akin to this species of rescue work. No one else was present, and Mr Muratti spoke plainly and to the point. ' It's just comes to this, Jossey,' he said, toward the end of the discussion, ( you'll never bo any good to yourself or any credit to your relations as long as you go slopping around in this good for nothing sort of way of yours. Now here's a good solid chance for you. Do as I tell you, man. Own up and play the greenery. You won't get more than five years as a first offender, and if you behave yourself you'll get out with three. I know the ropes down yonder ; don't you fear, and I'll pull 'em hard for you. Then when you come out there's five thousand for you in solid cash and a thousand a year for five years after that. Now Jossey, what do you say to that f ' What do you want me to be trapped at all for V the tempted Joshua objected rather sulkily. ' If you've got the gonivahs, why don't you plant 'em somewhere safe and run 'em down when you get a chance, like the others do V

' Because I don't do business like the others,' replied Mickey with an air of conscious pride, ' and because I'm playing a .deeper game and for a bigger stake. It's this way, you see. Ridley and me were shadowed while we were talking in Stockdale street. He didn't see it, but I did, and that's what made me think of this lay. We were shadowed again at Tooley's, and I was followed home here by one of the smouches. 1 Now, Lipinzki's no fool, and neither is Fox, nor Lowe, nor any of them. What do I want talking to Ridley for just after he's come out of the sorting room 1 What do I want to meet him again the same night at a boot store and bring a pair of his boots home by mistake, for?'

' I'll tell you, Jossey, these chaps kuow as well as I do that I look a parcel of stones from Ridley to night, and before long Lipinzki will be here with a search-warrant to look for them. ' Now, if he doesn't find auy he'll reckon that I've planted 'em, and I'm going to run 'em as you say. That means that we shall be watched,.and that everyone who goes out of camp, especially anyone belonging to me, will be stopped and searched, and so the Missis'll have about as much chance of seeing those stones down to Capetown on to the steamer as I would.

< Now, see how, my plan works out. They know I've got stones from Ridley, but they don't know what stones—see ? They come here with their warrants, arrest us both, and search us, find this other little lot on you, and jump to the-conclu-sion that they're the right ones, and

that I've just givon 'em to you. But there's no proof of that, and they can't get one, for you'll play the funk, own up, and swear you bought 'em from a Kaffir, while I do the indignant virtuous lay.' ' You needn't ne afraid of Ridley. They don't want him yet. They'll wait for him, and nab him when convenient. It's me they want. De Beers would give a good bit just now to plant me on the breakwater for a years, while they put this amalgamation business through. That's where my gamo comes in. This parcel should pan out, at £30,000 at the very least, and that's just what I want to fight these amalgamators on their own ground. 'lf I get nabbed the whole game would be up ; but if you go for me, Jossey, I'll make my fortune, and yours, too, iny pippin, and it won't be a matter of thousands, then, Jos sey, it'll be millions, my boy—millions, and you shall have your share when you come out, never fear. 1 You know, if you were left to yourself, Jossey, you'd never make a thousand in a century of blue moons, let alone ten thousand in three years or so, Come now, what do you say 1 You'll have to look sharp, for they may be here at any minute—ah, yes, I thought, so ; there's the official knock. Now, don't act the goat, and fly in the face of good fortune. Hero's the gonivahs. That's it, in your waistcoat pocket. Now button your coat. That'll do.'

' Well, gentlemen, good evening, What can I do for you this evening, if iu isn't morning already V ' You can hand over that parcel of diamonds you got from Frank Ridley to-night, Mr Muratti, and then you can come with us,' replied Inspector Lipinzki politely, but still a trifle stiffly. ' I've a search warrant here, but you'll save us a lot of trouble and yourself and household a lot of inconvenience by passing over the stones at once. We know they're in the house.' ' Then you knbw -a mighty lot more about my house than I do myself Mr Lipinzki,' snapped the little man, somewhat viciously. ' There are no diamonds here but what are my own lawful property, and they're all cut stones, so I'm afraid I can't give you what you've come for. But of course if you've got a warrant you can act on it—though it's a piece of most unwarrantable tyranny. And this a British colony, too. Why don't they call it a penal settlement, and have done with it. Shall I ask my wife to get up and come down V

' ] hope there'll be no necessity for that,' replied the inspector with a pleasant smilo. 'But now, gentlemen, wo must get to work, please. It isn't pleasant for any of us, I know, but it's our duty and it must be done.'

The formality resulted exactly as the astute Mickey had predicted it would. The diamonds—a parcel of stones worth about £2OO at first cost—were promptly found in Jossey's pocket, and he played the tyro in I. D. B, with a perfection that was by no means all art. Mickey, of course, did the virtuously indignant relative, and disappointed benefactor without a flaw, not only at the moment of discovery, but at the police court the next morning, So well, indeed, did both play their parts that, to Inspector Lipinski's intense disgust, tho magistrate refused to send the chief criminal to the special court for trial, and so, after providing generously for the defence of his erring relative, he left the courthouse a triumphantly white-washed man.

At the next sitting of.the special court Jossey got five years, and the same train which took him to Cape Town happened also to take Mrs Michael Muratti, who, for reasons of health, not unconnected with an increase of the seed of Abraham, had been advised to take a trip to Europe to avoid the worst of the hot season in Kimberley. Inspector Lipinzki still had his suspicions, but even they did not go so far as to put a value of about £30,000 on the high and hollow heels of the lady's dainty French-made boots. ('To lie concluded next Saturday.)