The robbery had really been a large one, and a bold one.

A collection of gems, cut and uncut, belonging to a foreign exhibit, and placed almost in the centre of one of those great well-guarded buildings, must be, one would think, proof against attack. Carefully secured in their trays and boxes, shut and locked behind heavy plates of gla.s.s in bronzed iron frames, guarded by day by trusted employes always under the eye of manager or exhibitor, and by night by a guard of drilled watchmen, what collection could be safer?

Nevertheless, at night there sparkled in those crystal prisms a little silver leaf with slightly curved edges, holding what looked like a tiny heap of water-drops, congealed and sparkling, shot through by a winter sunbeam; several larger diamonds, uncut, but brilliant and of great value; some exquisite specimens of pink topaz, and one great limpid, gleaming emerald, the pride of the fine collection. This at night. In the morning--they were not.

We sat down, a small group, for we did not hold council in the outer office, nor with one superfluous member, and began to find or make for ourselves a starting-point.

The work had been done very deftly. One of the gla.s.s plates had been cut out close to the bronze frame, and the gems removed; but that was not the strange part of the affair. In their places counterfeit gems had been put, careful imitations of the originals, and the gla.s.s plate had been deftly put in its place again.

'Ah!' said the fussy and half-distracted little man who represented the great foreign house so neatly defrauded, 'Ah! if I had not come down this morning, not one othair would haf know. I am the one only expairt. See! I am praisant wen the plaice is un-cloase. I stant near, wen soomsing make a beeg chock'--he meant shock or jar--'ant richt town falls out the kla.s.s. Wen I haf zeen it, I go queek ant look at doze shems. Ach! I know it awal--'tis fawlze awal--effery stonzes!'

That was the story. They had found the gla.s.s cut, and false gems in place of the true.

When we had stemmed the tide of this foreign eloquence, which was not for some time, I asked:

'How many know of this?'

'Nopotty at all onlee----'

'Not more than half a dozen,' broke in the chief of the bureau. 'Of course it wouldn't do! These are not the things that we like to let the public into. It wouldn't harmonize.'

'Ah-h-h!' aspirated the little man. 'It would trive away awal the tiamont mershants togetheer! U-u-og!'

'Right you are,' murmured Dave; and then in a louder tone, 'Can you trust your people to keep silent?'

'Ah! neffear fe-ur; tay know it is for tare goo-et.'

'Where are they?'

'The attendants?' queried the captain. 'Two are in charge of the pavilion, which remains closed. Lausch here was very clever; he sent for me at once, meantime keeping everything under cover; and when I saw how the land lay, I ordered close mouths all around, and put up a card "Closed for repairs." Then I sent for you, and we came back here.

Of course you will want to see the place.'

'The place and the people,' I said, somewhat impatiently; 'and we can't get it over too quick.'

We spent three of the long morning hours in viewing, first the case where the real gems had been, and next the shams that had taken their place; then the surroundings, and last, and one by one, the people engaged about the Lausch pavilion. They were all Viennese, speaking the English language fairly well, far better than Mr. Lausch himself; and after we had questioned them closely and carefully, we closeted ourselves together and discussed the few 'points' so far gathered, if points, upon investigation, they proved to be.

'Carl,' chuckled my friend when we were at last alone, 'one of our missions here at the great Columbian Exposition was to hunt diamond thieves--eh!'

Of course his meaning was plain to me, but I chose to differ with him; there was no better way of rousing his wits.

'Of all the expert thieves on the two continents, the only ones who will not come here will be those whose faces are in every rogues'

gallery in the land,' I replied. 'It would be too much good luck to find Bob and Delbras mixed up in this deal.'

'And yet,' declared he, 'I am willing to wager that it's the work of Delbras _et al_. Who but he would have prepared himself with a full a.s.sortment of paste jewels. Honestly, old man, don't you agree with me?'

'Yesterday,' I replied, 'I was ready to swear that Greenback Bob and his friend Delbras were circulating, perhaps issuing, those two-dollar Government notes.'

'And what's to hinder you thinking so still, eh?'

'Only that it would be too much of a fairy story to find our work cut out for us in such a way.'

Dave threw one st.u.r.dy leg across the chair nearest him, and settled himself in his favourite att.i.tude for an argumentative discourse.

'Young man,' he began, 'if you can find anything connected with this White City that has sprung out of the lake and the prairie that has not a touch of the Arabian Nights about it, I want to know where it is. Can you show me anything more fairylike than this fairy city, built, as it has been, in the teeth of time?'

'Oh----'

'I tell you it's all a miracle, a nineteenth-century miracle! To come down to facts, now, you and I came here expecting to find Greenback Bob, didn't we?'

'Yes, of course.'

'And we have good reason to believe that Delbras is also here. Not much miracle about that, you'll admit.'

'No,' I a.s.sented, knowing that he must reach his climax in his own way.

'No; I should say so! But here is a miracle, a regular White City miracle. I wonder if Delbras and company know that--leaving a couple of thousand of blue-coated Columbian guards out of the question, and they're bright fellows, let me tell you--there are here three hundred and odd picked detectives, a squad at every gate, and every gate and every district connected by telephone with the main office here. Let a suspicious character appear, click goes the nearest telephone, sending the man's description to headquarters, and then, click, click, click, to every district, every gate, every man, goes this same description.

Oh, the crooks whose faces are known will find a warm welcome here!

It's only the fine workers, who have been so successful that they are not well known, who can make hay in this place.'

'All the same,' I here submitted, 'for such fellows as Delbras and his ilk, who know the world on both continents, this is a promising field, in spite of the telephone system and the detectives in plain clothes at every gate.'

'As how?'

'To the man who can speak several tongues, and is an adept at disguise, this Fair, with its citizens from every clime, will be a better place for concealment than London, Paris, and New York rolled into one.'

Dave gave utterance to a long, low whistle, and jerked himself to an upright position.

'You're right again!' he cried. 'Come, let's get down to business.

What's your idea about this robbery?'

'About the same as yours, I fancy.'

'And what's that?'

I took out my notebook, wherein I had jotted down the most important items of testimony elicited from the Lausch attendants, saying:

'Get out your notes, Dave; let's see how they agree.' Dave produced his own briefer notes, and I began running my finger slowly down the pages.

'It was done during the day.'

'Of course!' impatiently.

'And slowly--that is, a little at a time.'

'How slowly?'

'Well, for instance, Lausch himself told of a young woman who was much taken with the pink topaz display--you remember?'

'Yes;' beginning to smile behind his book.