are a card-player. When the other fellow has all the trumps, it saves time to throw down your hand.”
“What has all this talk to do with the jewel of which you spoke?”
“Gently, Count. Restrain that eager mind! Let me get to the points in my own humdrum fashion. I have all this against you; but, above all, I have a clear case against both you and your fighting bully in the case of the Crown diamond.”
“Indeed!”
“I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought you away. I have the Commissionaire who saw you near the case. I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you. Ikey has peached, and the game is up.”
The veins stood out on the Count’s forehead. His dark, hairy hands were clenched in a convulsion of restrained emotion. He tried to speak, but the words would not shape themselves.
“That’s the hand I play from,” said Holmes. “I put it all upon the table. But one card is missing. It’s the King of Diamonds. I don’t know where the stone is.”
“You never shall know.”
“No? Now, be reasonable, Count. Consider the situation. You are going to be locked up for twenty years. So is Sam Merton. What good are you going to get out of your diamond? None in the world. But if you hand it over—well, I’ll compound a felony. We don’t want you or Sam. We want the stone. Give that up, and so far as I am concerned you can go free so long as you behave yourself in the future.
