The Surakarta/Chapter 5
V
MR. HEREFORD HAS A GUNSHOT WOUND
Wade Hereford knew that his office force on the morning after the loss of the Surakarta showed a nervous agitation unsuited to a Chicago banking office, still less usual in any surroundings of his own. This annoyed because it hampered him in his very unusual activities of the day, which included communications by telephone, telegram—and even foreign cable. He was teased, too, by the pain in his left hand, which was swathed in bandages the expert wrapping of which showed that the accident—whatever it had been—was at least serious enough to have required the services of a physician. But these causes, even when taken together, did not fully account for the irritation with which he received Max Schimmel's card, when it was brought to the inner office where he was closeted with a visitor.
"It is a naturalist friend of mine whom I consulted yesterday, perhaps a little precipitately, as to the real existence of the Surakarta," he explained to his companion.
Great as had been Hereford's eagerness to consult Max the afternoon before, this morning he had no wish at all to see him; but he could find, as he drummed impatiently with the card upon the desk, no excuse under the circumstances by which he could put the German off. So he went out to him.
Max Schimmel's dispassionate gaze shifted mildly from Hereford's face to his bandaged hand and back again.
"What hass been happening here, my friendt?" he inquired curiously.
"Have you never heard, Max," Hereford dryly demanded, "of any one charging another with doing a thing which he, the accuser, admits could not have been done in the way he accuses?"
"Many times," Max returned blandly. "Wherefore"
"Wherefore what?"
"If you haf done it do not fail to maintain that it must haf been done in the way they accuse; but if you haf not done it, then show them it must haf been done otherwise."
"You, too, Max?" Hereford said still more dryly.
"Too—what, my friendt?"
"Implicate me?"
"In what, my friendt?"
"You, of course, have heard that the Surakarta has been stolen, but perhaps not yet that they say I was at the bottom of its disappearance?"
"Then there iss no exblanation of how it wass taken—there iss nothings more than wass given in the morning bapers?"
"Nothing."
Max Schimmel rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
"I must help you to show them, then, my friendt, that the jewel wass taken in a way which it could not be taken by you."
Hereford glanced with annoyance about the office. Max, he saw, was about to demand fuller explanation and he felt, under the circumstances, he could not refuse it.
"Come in, then," he ungraciously decided. "I have already carried out so much of your advice—before you gave it—as to engage the services of a detective—McAdams, from one of the best private agencies in the city. I was preparing to make a statement to him when you came in, and I see no reason why I should not give it to you both at once."
He led the way into the inner office.
"This is Max Schimmel," he introduced.
McAdams scrutinized Max, started to speak and checked himself. The little German, on his part, turned with increased curiosity from the flushed face of his friend to the stolid countenance of the heavily built, unintelligent-looking detective. McAdams did not bear externally any evidence of the ability Hereford apparently had found in him.
"Well?" Max demanded when he had weighed this fact. "Now we will have the statement?"
"My first information even of the existence of the Surakarta," Hereford began promptly, "was yesterday when a traveler, who had chanced to come over on the same boat as the Javanese, came to me as the trustee of the Regan estate to tell me why the jewel was brought here. I was, of course, displeased and angry, especially as his story was borne out by a message from Miss Regan, almost at the same time, that she was in town. To assure myself the story was not a mere fabrication I went first to Max, from whom I learned that the jewel really existed."
The German gravely nodded corroboration.
"Then I went to Miss Regan to discover whether she was indeed a party to such a bargain and to prevent her carrying out her part of it; but I accomplished nothing, except to learn that she had really promised herself to the Soesoehoenan upon receipt of the emerald. Finally, late in the afternoon, I called upon the envoy of the Soesoehoenan—whose name is Baraka—at the Hotel Tonty, and attempted through him to prevent the affair from going farther. He was at first polite, then obdurate, finally angry—and we had a heated discussion.
"Nevertheless, in the evening I went to see him again. It had occurred to me how easily the Soesoehoenan might have substituted an imitation stone for the real one, and I was at least resolved that Miss Regan should not undergo the further disgrace of being tricked.
"I will be perfectly frank with you," he said after an instant. "I did not believe a false jewel would be substituted. I wanted to see this stone—but only partly because it could make a girl like Miss Regan promise to marry a Malay. I had another long argument with Baraka, at the end of which he acknowledged the justice of my claim and opened the box and showed me the emerald."
"It was the real one?" McAdams inquired.
"I am no judge of jewels," Hereford replied; "but the stone itself was proof of its own identity. It is a wonderful, an amazing gem. I could understand better, after I had seen it, the effect it had had upon my ward. Yes, it was the real one."
"You left the envoy after he had showed you the stone?" McAdams asked.
"Then I left him," Hereford assented.
He folded and unfolded with his good hand the corner of a chance scrap of paper that lay on the desk, almost nervously.
"The next incident that concerns the emerald was the visit Baraka paid me this morning at my office," he recommenced. "He had been first to my rooms, but I left home very early this morning. The stone had disappeared and he came to me on the evident suspicion of my complicity in its disappearance."
"Because you had seen him open the box?"
"Yes; it was, he claimed, the first time the box ever had been opened except in the presence of the royal pair."
"But Baraka himself, you have said, knew the secret of the box?"
"He says he is the first person—and the only one—to whom the secret has been confided; and it was taught to him only just before he set out for this country. He was chosen by the Soesoehoenan as his envoy, I understand, because his estate in Java is so large that the value even of the Surakarta itself is not sufficient to pay him to make away with it; and his father, mother, wives and children, as well as his estate, are hostages with the Soesoehoenan for the safe delivery of the stone."
"I see."
"Baraka came here alone, except for one attendant. He was quite beside himself with anxiety, terror and bewilderment; for, besides the amazing manner in which the emerald disappeared, Baraka, though he speaks excellent English, has never before visited America and is not familiar with American methods and customs. He had, moreover, been subjected during the whole night to the questioning of the police and secret-service officers, before they assured themselves that he himself had had nothing to do with the disappearance of the gem."
"Then they did assure themselves of that?"
"Completely; they are satisfied that neither Baraka nor any member of his suite was concerned in it."
"Then we need not consider that possibility."
"Baraka's visit here was occasioned, as I have said, by his suspicions of me, due to my having seen him open the box. When he saw that between ten o'clock last night, when he showed me the emerald, and nine o'clock this morning, when he made his call on me at this office, I had been wounded in my left hand, his suspicions appeared to become certainties."
"He was not satisfied, then, with the explanation you gave him of the nature of your wound?" McAdams had looked up in surprise.
"The wound is a gunshot wound."
"I mean, he would not accept the proof you must have offered him that you had been wounded in some other way than by his bullet?"
"I offered no such proof."
McAdams and Max both stared at Hereford in amazement. The young trustee, on his part, for the first time found difficulty in formulating what he had to say.
"I offered no proof," he repeated even more directly. "I was obliged to leave him, as well as the police, to imagine as they pleased what circumstances, what motives, could force a man of reputation and character like mine to remain silent as to how he received a wound that subjects him to the suspicions and the dangers I now run."
"It seems strange, Mr. Hereford," the detective offered after a pause, "but no doubt I'll find your reasons for acting in that way quite sufficient."
"I offer no reasons, even to you. You must be content, for the time at least, to regard this wound merely as a coincidence," Hereford replied curtly.
The detective gnawed his mustache, staring fixedly and doubtfully at his client.
"You spoke of the police," he said at last.
"Because Baraka returned here, an hour after his first visit, with two police officers."
"And formally charged you with the theft?"
"Yes; but was dissuaded by the police from taking out a warrant. The inexplicable nature of the robbery, which has perplexed and confused the police as much as it has bewildered the Javanese themselves, as well as my connections and reputation that assure the police that I will not run away, made them want to await further developments. They seemed, too, to feel that the motive assigned to me by Baraka was inadequate."
"Then that motive"
"Baraka does not accuse me of making away with the stone for its intrinsic value, but in order that the negotiations for Miss Regan's marriage might be stopped. He had learned that the control of her property would pass from my hands if she married."
"Which would inconvenience you?"
"It would reduce my income," Hereford admitted after some hesitation.
McAdams rose resignedly.
"As you have employed me, sir, to establish your innocence rather than to develop a case against you, I think I can do better by going to the scene of the robbery than by questioning you any further now." And he turned his eyes doubtfully upon Max.
"Goot!" Max exclaimed with alacrity. "I shall be glad to accompany. Ah, my friendt"—he raised his hand as Hereford frowned—"permit it! Yesterday you come to me and ask from me—well, my friendt, things that today haf significance. Today—I must see more, my friendt!"
Hereford watched the calm little man uncertainly for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.