Chapter II

As the steel door closed behind Osmuhn and Mrs. Marle, Thornley Colton leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully puffed a cigarette. But Sydney Thames, the secretary the blind man had picked up twenty-five years before as a bundle of baby-clothes on the bank of the English river that had given him his name, could not remain silent. The story young Osmuhn had been telling them when the Marles had interrupted was not one calculated to keep the ever-doubting Sydney still.

“What do you think of that necklace disappearance Osmuhn asked you to investigate?” he demanded.

“One of the most interesting problems I’ve been called to solve in a long time,” answered Colton. A smile of joy curved the thin lips, for a problem, to the blind man who solved crime-puzzles as his recreation, was the greatest pleasure he knew.

“But the thing is utterly impossible!” protested Sydney. “Such a thing couldn’t have happened in broad daylight and in New York.”

“As I’ve told you once or twice before, Sydney, the fact remains that it did happen. And there must be some explanation.”

Sydney shook his head. “The statement that a man in full possession of his senses could stare blankly at a two-hundred-thousand-dollar diamond necklace while it disappeared into a thin mist before his very eyes is a trifle too strong for me,” he averred stoutly.

“Do you think young Osmuhn is lying?” smiled Colton.

“He seems to be absolutely straight,” hesitated Sydney. “But his story----” The rest was obvious.

The smile on the blind man’s face broadened. “But consider his frankness in telling of it, Sydney. If he’d been lying I imagine he’d have concocted a better story than that. Consider how every detail of the disappearance is firmly impressed in his mind. The robbery, for that’s what it was, occurred after closing hours, when all the clerks and other employees had gone. Only the younger Osmuhn and the diamond-expert for the firm were on the premises. Norvel, the expert, seeing young Osmuhn behind the long case in the shop, wanted to show him the completed diamond necklace that was to be delivered at the Nevin home next day. He laid it before Osmuhn, and together they examined it for possible flaws. Norvel placed his cane on the case while he took a cigarette from his pocket. Finding he had no matches, he limped with the aid of his other cane to his overcoat, which he had thrown over the back of a chair five feet or so away. A gasp from Osmuhn caused him to turn, with the overcoat still on his arm. He saw the other man staring wildly at the place where, a few minutes before, the diamond necklace had been. Osmuhn swears that, while Norvel was walking toward his overcoat, a thick mist, which he describes as not unlike steam, appeared over the necklace, completely hiding it from his eyes. He confesses that the thing was so remarkable that for an instant he could do nothing but stare. Then the mist began to dissolve, and he saw that the necklace had vanished utterly. His gasp caused Norvel to turn. Norvel hadn’t seen the mist, for it had entirely disappeared when he had hobbled back to the case. Together they searched for the missing diamonds without finding a trace. Also, without leaving one another’s sight for an instant, they telephoned to the elder Osmuhn, and sat watching one another for their mutual protection, until he and a private detective came. They submitted to a thorough search, and took part in the all-night hunt for the jewels that covered every part of the store and building. Why, the very impossibility of the story stamps it with truth!”

“But Norvel was there,” reminded Sydney.

“He had no possible chance of touching the necklace. He had turned away, and his back was toward Osmuhn.”

“But the mist?” persisted Sydney. “That is the impossible part of the whole thing. How, in Heaven’s name, could there be a mist such as he describes in a New York jewellery shop? It’s absurd!”

“Not absurd, Sydney,” corrected the problemist mildly. “Merely the solution; the solution of the whole thing.”

The smile went from his face, he leaned forward with a sudden tenseness of face and body; the delicate nostrils quivered like those of a hound scenting a new trail.

“Something’s wrong inside, Sydney!” His sightless eyes were fixed on the closed, soundproof door, his head was bent forward expectantly. Then he straightened back in his chair, and was quietly puffing his cigarette when the door opened, and the elder Osmuhn, white-faced, trembling, staggered out of the vault-room.

“It’s gone!” He choked the words just as the woman had choked them a few minutes before. “The Thousand Facets of Fire has vanished!”

The blind man had risen at the first word, and before the gem-dealer had finished speaking he had brushed past him, the thin, hollow stick that gave its messages to the hypersensitive finger-tips locating the steps unerringly.

The sobbing, hysterical woman at the small table did not even look up as he laid his hand gently on her shoulder, but he felt her body shudder under the touch, as though her overwrought mind had already pictured visions of the police.

“Tell me how it happened, Mrs. Marle.” The words were soft-spoken, kindly.

“There is nothing to tell,” she sobbed. “The ruby just--went.”

“Dissolved into mist?”

She looked up, sudden, wild hope showing behind the tears in her eyes. “Would you believe that?” she asked breathlessly. “It seems so--impossible--I was afraid----.”

“I know that is how it disappeared,” Thornley Colton said quietly. “Mr. Osmuhn will tell you that a diamond necklace vanished in the same way nearly ten days ago.”

The white-faced jeweller brushed his sweat-beaded forehead with a shaking hand. “Yes,” he groaned, “that, and this ruby, will bring the loss to nearly three-quarters of a million. But it couldn’t have happened!” he declared, almost fiercely. “Mrs. Marle was holding it in her hand! I wasn’t two feet away. The walls are solid concrete! There isn’t a crack in them!” Each staccato sentence was jerked out almost passionately. Osmuhn seemed to be trying to convince himself, as well as his hearers, that the thing he knew had happened was utterly impossible.

Colton paid no attention. He spoke to the woman, still quietly, gently, smoothing his questions so that they became merely statements for which he wanted confirmation.

“You knew the ruby was gone, even before your eyes saw the empty hand?”

Osmuhn and Sydney Thames came closer to the little table.

“Yes.” She spoke more calmly. “I raised my other hand to brush my eyes--I thought it was an optical illusion of some kind--then I felt the stone--go.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” she faltered, looking from one to the other in bewilderment. “I could see nothing but the thick mist that seemed to cover the whole table. Then--I suddenly felt my outstretched hand relieved of the weight. It--seemed to just fly away!”

“A ruby weighing nearly two hundred carats would make a very good flyer,” observed the blind man smilingly. Then: “But the mist, wasn’t it a trick of the lights?”

She shook her head. “Mist is the only word that describes it. When my eyes first noticed it, it was a ribbon that widened almost instantly to hide the whole table, though the light shone above it perfectly. I know that last unconsciously, for I think the jewel had hypnotised me--I couldn’t take my eyes away, even when the mist hid it from sight.”

“Where is the switch for the table-light? Snap it off, Mr. Osmuhn.”

The jeweller leaned across the table to obey. Colton examined every inch of the table-light with his fingers.

“Absolutely nothing there,” he murmured. Then his fingers felt the two buttons in the brass plate that he had made the jeweller locate for him. He snapped the light on again, then off, and back.

“It wasn’t a trick of the light,” he declared emphatically. “Nor of your eyes, Mrs. Marle.” He stood erect. “Tell your son to come here, Mr. Osmuhn,” he said quietly.

The white-faced jeweller almost tottered from the small room. The instant that Osmuhn’s footsteps told the blind man that he had gone through the door, Thornley Colton spoke.

“Mrs. Marle.” His voice was crisp, imperative. “At the instant you first saw the mist, _was_ it as wide as a ribbon?”

She answered steadily enough, despite the sudden change in the blind man’s tone: “Yes, it seemed to stretch over the table lengthways, waving slightly, as a ribbon would do in a breath of air, but almost instantly it widened and widened, until it covered the whole table.” There was only a slight tremor in her voice, but in her eyes was awe, as she spoke of the inexplicable thing her eyes had seen.

“Mr. Osmuhn had his back toward you?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

She smiled wanly up at him, forgetting, as people usually did when Colton was speaking, that he could see nothing. “I don’t know it because I saw him,” she replied, “but I _do_ know it because he always turns toward the small safe back of this chair, and idly arranges the jewel-cases on the shelves when a customer is examining one of the rare gems he keeps in this room. He knows the value of silence when a lover of jewels is looking at a wonderful stone like the Thousand Facets of Fire.”

Colton smiled understanding; then wheeled to face the door as Osmuhn entered, followed by his son. Following them, unnoticed, came Helen Marle. She took her place behind her mother without a word.

“Father says the ruby has vanished!” cried the younger Osmuhn, and his voice, and eyes, and very manner seemed a wild plea for denial.

Colton merely nodded. “Utterly,” he confirmed. “Just as the necklace disappeared--into a mist. Now tell me, Mr. Osmuhn,” he continued quietly, “what was the appearance of the mist when you first saw it over the necklace on the glass case outside?”

“Why, it was just a mist,” stammered the son. “Just a cloud that spread instantly.”

“You never lifted your eyes from the stones?”

“I don’t think so--though I may have looked up for an instant as Mr. Norvel started toward his coat.”

“Cloud--ribbon,” murmured the blind man, apparently to himself, tapping his trouser-leg with his slim stick.

“That wonderful ruby--gone!” muttered the elder Osmuhn, sinking, almost inertly, into a chair at the other side of the small table.

“My God!” They all turned, as the cry burst from the man who had entered the vault-room unnoticed. The new comer was a cripple who hobbled along with the aid of two heavy black canes. But it was the lean, intelligent face, with the coal-black eyes and the thin nose, that held Sydney’s gaze. Mentality was stamped in every deep-graven line, but now there seemed a pitiful helplessness in the tremulous lips of the man as he advanced toward them.

“Mr. Norvel?” Colton stepped to meet the man with outstretched hand. Then he answered the surprised looks some inner consciousness told him was on the faces of the other persons in the room: “Mr. Osmuhn told me of you when we were talking outside, and the tap of your canes as you entered was all the identification I needed.”

“Yes, I am Mr. Norvel.” The words came almost gaspingly, and Colton felt the man’s hand tremble in his. “I was in my office when I saw Mr. Osmuhn speak to Henry. I knew there was something wrong with the Thousand Facets of Fire, and----.”

He gasped chokingly, and staggered. Osmuhn jumped from his chair with a cry of concern, the sight of the man before him momentarily driving from his mind even the loss of the great ruby. “Sit down, Philip,” he commanded, leading the crippled man to a chair.

“These things--are taking the life out of me,” gasped the diamond expert of the firm. “The necklace--then this!”

“Mr. Norvel is on the verge of collapse,” whispered young Osmuhn. “He has had valvular heart trouble for years. The loss of the diamond necklace he had worked on upset him terribly--and he worked for months to get the Thousand Facets of Fire.”

Colton nodded sympathetically. “He should take a long rest,” murmured the blind man.

Norvel heard him. “I’ll get it soon,” he said helplessly, “in the grave.”

“You have years before you yet,” smiled Colton encouragingly. “Disappearances like these are calculated to frazzle the best of nerves.” Then, in the same gentle tone he had used in questioning Mrs. Marle, he went on: “Mr. Osmuhn told me of the terrible auto accident you had in France last summer, Mr. Norvel. Your driver and the occupant of the other car were killed, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” the cripple shuddered. “And it made an old man of me, that and my rotten heart.”

Again Thornley Colton nodded sympathetically. “You hovered between life and death for several months, I understand?”

“Practically dead,” Norvel answered.

“Um!” The blind man rolled the thin stick between his slender fingers, and puzzled lines appeared on his forehead.

“What is the object of those questions?” demanded the elder Osmuhn, and he could not keep the impatience from his voice.

“A long chance, nothing more,” Colton assured him quietly. “A chance that Mr. Norvel, in his delirium, might have told secrets that gave the criminal information necessary to commit these robberies.”

The diamond expert half rose from his chair, his hands clutching his heavy canes. “That may be true--I may be responsible!”

“Ridiculous!” snapped Osmuhn, and he made no attempt to keep the impatience from his tone now.

“We can’t afford to overlook even the remotest possibility in a case like this,” said Thornley Colton evenly.

Norvel lowered the hand that had been clutching at his heart. “Why don’t you search?” he cried. “The stone couldn’t have gotten out of the room! The walls are of solid concrete, impregnable. The ruby must be here!”

The elder Osmuhn looked around nervously, eyes travelling from one face to the other, seeking vainly for some way out. Mrs. Marle rose and slipped her arm around the waist of her daughter.

“I will submit to a search,” she said quietly.

“Thank you! Thank you!” Osmuhn fairly choked his relief. “I will get Miss----.”

“Do you want to search Sydney and me?” asked Thornley Colton, with a half smile on his expressive lips.

“I don’t think it is necessary; you weren’t----.” Osmuhn stopped, understanding that he had practically admitted that Mrs. Marle was the only one on whom suspicion rested. His son opened his mouth to protest, but the woman forestalled him.

“I understand,” she said steadily.

“Then we will go; it is long past my lunch-hour.” The blind man’s fingers touched the crystalless watch in his pocket.

“Don’t you want to know the result of the search?” Osmuhn asked blankly.

“I know it now,” said the blind man, with that same curious smile on his lips. “Good-bye, Mr. Osmuhn.” He shook hands heartily with the jeweller, and held the woman’s hand in his for an instant.

“I shall be at your reception to-morrow night,” he reminded, and she murmured a steady-voiced “Thank you.”

The blind man touched the fingers of the daughter, clasped the palm of the younger Osmuhn and that of Norvel, and hurried out, leaving them staring after him.

It was not until he and Sydney were in the big car on their way to the old-fashioned up-town house and luncheon that Thornley Colton spoke.

“One of the most remarkable crimes I’ve ever had the good fortune to work on, Sydney. And a remarkable thief--a criminal with an imagination.”

“But how did they vanish; where did the ruby and the necklace go?” asked Sydney Thames helplessly.

“Regarding the first part of your double-barrelled question: Is it possible, after all you have heard, that you don’t know _how_ they vanish?” The smile on the thin lips was inscrutable. “Where they go, Sydney, is not half so important as where they are. That’s where the work comes in. I am sure that I know where the Thousand Facets of Fire is, but I don’t know where the necklace is. I never half complete a case. By waiting I can get both the necklace and the ruby. By jumping recklessly I can arrest the criminal and recover the ruby; but I’m not a detective, Sydney; problems are merely my recreation. So I’ll recover both.”

“The ruby!” exclaimed Sydney. “You know where that is?”

“Certainly,” nodded Colton, snapping his smoked cigarette into the street. “The thief has been safe because he has worked against men who have imaginations that are handicapped by eyes. My imagination is unhampered. As I told Osmuhn, the search will reveal nothing, despite the fact that the ruby is just about three feet from the place where it disappeared!”