THE KING'S DIAMOND.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 272, 9 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE KING'S DIAMOND.

11. Nearly five years later Michael Muratti, Esq., was sitting at the writing table in the library of his town residence in Lancaster Gate. He was reading a letter and swearing softly under his breath at every liDe of it. When he had read it through for the second time he crushed it up in his hand, stuffed it into his trouser pocket, went and stood on the hearthrug, with his short, sturdy legs wide apart, and said to a life-sized portrait of himself, which bung in the middle of the opposite wall : ' No, bush me if I do ! I've been generous to both of them, and I can't stick it any longer. I'll give 'em just another thousand apiece for old times' sake, and that's a lot, Half a million apiece, whew ! Why don't they ask for the whole canboodle at once 1 I'll see them selling fried fish first,'

The explanation of his resolution may be briefly given as follows : Thanks to exemplary behaviour and a certain judiciously applied influence. Mr Muratti'a scapegoat had got off with a little over threryears. The day he came out he received the welcome but not un-. expected intelligence that through the death of a relative in London, he had come into about £SOOO ready cash, and properties and securities yielding about another thousand a year. The same evening he renewed the acquaintance of Frank Ridley, who had been discharged without any assigned reason a few weeks after the great coup which had proved so worthless to him. The bank had been advised by cable that a leaf had been torn out of Mr Muratti's London cheque book, and cautioned him not to cash my cheques without further notice. Hence, the first £2500 had not been paid. The I O U Mr Muratti had laughed at. The stones had cost him quite enough already, or would do before he had done with Jossey, and he didn't propose to pay any more. It was a case of dog eating dog. but Ridley could do nothing with ont disclosing the whole transaction, and that would mean not less than ten years on the Breakwater for him, so he grinned and bore it, and waited till Jossey came out, Meanwhile Mr Muratti grew and flourished exceedingly. Everything he touched turned either to gold or diamonds—though he never touched anything illicit after the lost big deal.

He was quite a great man now, but, as every one knows liim, there is no Deed to repeat that, and there was gnot a cloud on his Bnancial or social horizon save liis connection with Jossey and the present impossibility," of getting introduced to the Prince of Wales.

He had given Ridley a couple of thousand in cash on Jossey's strong representation, and fondly thought that would settle his unprovable claim for good, but that was just where he had made the biggest mistake of his life. Jossey came out of penal servitude a very different person to the shiftless ne'er-do-well that he was when he entered it. It had done him a lot of good. It had put backbone into him, and, besides, ho had learned many things that he wotted not of before.

After more than three years of penal toil and discipline, embittered by deprivation of all creature comforts, it was only in the course of mature when ho regained his freedom, and found himself in command of plenty of money, he should be strongly inclined to compensate himself for his vicarious sufferings on a somewhat liberal scale. It was in this humour that Ridley had found him. He had made a little money, more or less honestly, since his discharge, and so there was no suggestion of sponging. But he was very sore still about the check and the I 0 U and in Jossey he thought he saw the means of getting square with the millionaire who had done him such an unscrupulous • shot in the eye.' To this end be worked both skilfully and successfully on the exconvict's feelings until he caruc to look qpon himself as a martyr and Michael Muratti as a monster of ingratitude. What were a few paltry thousand to the millions that were literally rolling in—the millions which would never have been his if he, Joshua, had not borne the penalty of his crime ? He had the plainest right to a good substantial share of them, and so. too, for the matter of that, had the man from whom Mickey had s>o dishonestly obtained the stones on which his new fortunes had been fou^.', time went on these arguments were very strongly enforced by the fact that the aforesaid 'paltry thousands,' did not get very far when Mr Joshua Mosenstein had once learned the joys of spending money with the cheerful freedom that is bom of a sure and certain hope that, when it is done, there will be plenty more forthcoming. The logical result was that the two worthies, now fast friends and allies in a common object had made demand after demand on the apparently bottomless purse of themulti-millionaire, until at last a certain fact bad come to their knowledge, which after duo dclile-

ration together htul inspired them to write the joint letter that had so disturbed Mr Muratti's equanimity.

They travelled home by the same mailboat which earned their letter, and on the morning following its delivery they poid a visit to the millionare at his West End mansion. The interview was not exactly a friendly one. Mr Muratti blustered, and his visitors quietly but firmly doubled their already exorbitant demands.

The man of millions threatened to have them put into the street, and broadly hinted at the advisability of giving them into custody as blackmailers. This brought matters to a head in a somewhat dramatic fashion. The ex-sorter took out his pocket book and produced from it a half sheet of note paper on which was pasted a short newspaper cutting, lie handed it to the millionaire and said :

' That's from the Cape Times, Mr Muratti. Do you think you could throw any light on the subject 1 I have an idea that you could, especially with our assistance. De Beers would give a good deal to know how that stone got away. I believe they would even accept me as Queen's evidence to get the ndstery cleaned up. What do you think.' With slowly widening eyes and sinking heart the man of many millions and more ambitions read the cutting. It ran thus, ' The King of the Belgains has just indulged in his well known taste for gems by the addition to his already priceless collection of a magnificent rose-colored diamond, weighing nearly thirty carats in its cut state. His majesty is said to have paid the enormous price of £IOOO a carat to the Amsterdam merchants of whom he bought it. In color and water it is the exact counterpart of the famous rose diamond in the De Beers collection, but is much larger.

'lts origin is involved in some little mystery. The merchants from whom his majesty purchased it affirm that tho dealer from whom they bought it declared that it was an ancient Eastern gem cut in Amsterdam, but experts who have seen it state with equal positiveness that it is a Kimberley stone. 1 A rumor reaches us from Diamondapolis that a certain Kaffir, who has since disappeared, boasted one night in his cup?, just after he had been discharged from the Kimberley compound, that he found the biggest rooi klippe (red stone) thatever was found on the fields. If this is true, the stone never reached the diamond-room at De Beers'. It is just possible lint some of the 1.D.8 fraternity could throw some light on the subsequent wanderings of the 1 mooi rooi klippe' of which the vanished Kaffir boasted.'

Frank Ridley and Joshua Mosensfein watched the millionaire's changing face narrowly as he read. When he saw that he had finished, Ridley said quietly :

' I can find that Kaffir, if necessary, Mr Muratti. Of course, the diamond law does not hold good in this country, but the laws as to conspiracy and dealing in stolen goods do. If De Beers prosecuted, they would find my evidence worth buying. Jossey here has done his time and would make a clean breast of it without fear, and so the only one who could be touched would be '

'Ob, that'll do!' exclaimed the millionaire in a last burst of despairing anger. ' What do you want V ' I want half a million down, and another half in approved securities—preferably Do Beers,' replied Ridley ; ' and as a matter of principle, I must have that check in favor of Miss Ransome duly honored. A millionaire's wife should be above suspicion. ' And I want a million, too,' chimed in Mr Mosenstein, ' same way ns Frank wants hi?. And what's more, Mickey Muratti,' he went on, shaking bis finger in his face, 'as you disgraced me by sending me totbe Breakwater for your crime, you must restore my credit in the eyes of the society that I shall go into now, by making your wife let me marry that pretty little sister, Rebecca, of hers, that 1 loved all my life. >She was always fond of me, and will have me when lam a millionaire. I dayesay you can spare her a decent marriage portion.'

TiitV were big terms, but Mr Muratti did not yet despair of being introduced to the Prince of Wales, and so in the end he yielded. A few weeks later two new-made South African millionaires, one English and one Hebrew, blossomed forth, each in his congenial sphere of London society. A little later on there were two splendid weddings, and, until these lines appear in print, the the mystery of the King's rose diamond will remain unsolved.