For one second Jenny seemed to be thinking the matter over. Then she answered,--

"Oh, I wish you would; I would--I'd do it to-morrow; and then you could bring up the diamonds to show me, and we should be alone. Now, write down the stuff I am to get."

Mr Smythe knew a little about doctoring, so he wrote out the quant.i.ties of a drug on a leaf of his note-book, and gave it her.

"Now promise to bring up the diamonds to-morrow, and we will look at them when we are alone and he is asleep."

"All right," he said; "but I don't think they will interest you, and I hardly like bringing them out; but I can't refuse you anything, my dear."

Just then Captain Hamilton came in again, and, as he seemed inclined to stay, Mr Smythe took leave of his host and hostess, the latter giving him a look which seemed to say "Don't forget."

"By gad, she is a plucky little woman, and dead gone on me! Why, I believe, if I told her to, she'd put a drop of prussic acid in his whiskey!" said Mr Smythe to himself, as he swaggered down to the club from Hamilton's house.

That evening he was in very great force, and his anecdotes and epigrams were unusually brilliant. Every one understood the point of what he said, and knew to whom his hints referred; and his toadies told him that he was a bad lot, a very bad lot, for they knew that this sort of reproach was the most grateful flattery to him. "What an insufferable cad that little brute is! hope he comes to grief soon," was the remark of one man who probably didn't like him.

The next evening Mr Smythe opened his safe, and took out his parcel of diamonds. After all there was no danger in taking them as far as the Hamiltons' house, though they were so valuable, for the Hamiltons lived in one of the princ.i.p.al streets in the town. It was rather a silly whim of the little woman, he thought, being so set on seeing the diamonds; but he knew enough of the s.e.x to be aware that she was determined to have it granted. The diamonds were in a large snuff-box. There were about a hundred diamonds weighing from ten to fifty carats each, and they were worth about 20,000 pounds. Something seemed to prompt him to put the diamonds back into the safe; but on the Diamond Fields men get used to the idea of carrying about stones of great value; and then he thought of Jenny Hamilton's bewitching little face, so he put the diamonds in his pocket, and started off for her house. The house stood in what was called a garden, though very little grew there. On either side it was only a few yards from the house next door. As Smythe walked up to the door Jenny Hamilton came out to meet him.

"Hush!" she said, holding her hand up to her mouth; "he is asleep! I've given it him; I put it into the whiskey-bottle, and he took it all."

She beckoned him to follow, and they both went indoors into the sitting-room. From the next room they could hear the heavy breathing of the Captain.

"Now, have you brought them?" she said.

"Yes; I've done what you told me to do," he answered. "Let me show you them."

"Stop," she said first; "let me see if he is fast asleep." She went into the next room and came back again. "He's fast asleep, poor old boy," she said.

Smythe thought that he never had seen her look so pretty. She was dressed very prettily; had a very brilliant colour on her cheeks, which became her; and her eyes glittered with excitement. They sat down, and he poured the diamonds out of the box on to a sheet of white paper, which looked grey contrasted with some of them.

"And these diamonds are worth twenty thousand pounds! How good to bring them!"

Smythe thought that he never had seen such a pretty little face as hers was, as she looked at the diamonds with a longing glance; but he was rather surprised when she looked up into his face and said, "Give them to me." Of course he had no intention of doing any such thing; the idea was simply absurd, considering their value. And Smythe didn't half like this eccentricity of his pretty little friend; still she looked so pretty that Smythe could not feel angry with her. Her face was close to his--she was looking up at him; he stooped down and kissed her. Just then he heard a step behind him, and as he turned round, his head struck against something hard: it was the muzzle of a revolver, which Hamilton was holding. Hamilton was wide awake, and there was a very ugly grin of triumph in his face.

"Well, you're a nice young man, you are, to drop in friendly of an evening! Hush! don't speak out loud, or I'll blow your brains out at once," said the Captain.

Jenny Hamilton didn't seem to be one bit disconcerted. She had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the diamonds, and she was turning them over, watching their sheen with evident pleasure. Mr Smythe, however, felt anything but at his ease. The situation was a very strange one, for if he shouted out "Murder!" he would be heard by his neighbours on both sides, who were only separated from him by a few feet of open s.p.a.ce and a few inches of tin wall. One of them was a young diamond-buyer, with a taste for comic singing, who had just returned from a trip home, and was entertaining his friends with the cream of the melody of the London music-halls, and as he stood shivering with fear, with the revolver held up to his head, Smythe could hear the chorus of one of the songs of the day. He had never cared less about comic singing. But though help was so near he felt completely in the power of Hamilton, who looked very resolute and reckless, and seemed to be quite in earnest.

Personal courage never was Mr Smythe's strong point, and now for a minute he felt too startled to think; in fact, he only had sufficient sense left to make him restrain his inclination to shout out for help.

After a second or two he began to feel more a.s.sured. It seemed so unlikely that he should be murdered in the middle of the town, within calling distance of several men; only the revolver was real enough.

When a man is holding a revolver up to your head, you have the worst of the position. He mayn't care to shoot; but, on the other hard, he may; and, whatever the ultimate consequences may be to him, the immediate consequences to you are sure.

In a half-hearted way for one second Smythe thought of resisting, and he made a movement with his hand towards his pocket.

"Keep your hands up; you'd better," said the other.

Smythe obeyed him, and sat holding his hand above his head, looking very ridiculous.

"You'd better take that from him, Jen," said Hamilton; and Jenny Hamilton put her hand into her dear friend's pocket and deftly eased him of his revolver. A gleam of hope came into Mr Smythe's heart. After all, he thought, people don't commit homicide without reason; and he saw that he had not to deal with an outraged husband, but with a pair of sharpers. He certainly began to wish that his diamonds were in his safe at home; but he knew they were difficult property to deal with, and hoped to get off without making any great sacrifice.

"What the devil do you mean by this, Captain Hamilton?" he said, trying to put on an air of unconcern he didn't feel. "Surely it's a poor joke to steal into your own drawing-room, and hold a revolver up to the head of a man you find calling on your wife."

"I don't set up for being a good joker," said the Captain; "but my jokes are eminently practical, as you'd learn if the police of London, New York, and 'Frisco told you what they know of Jack Hamilton."

"Well, you'd better say what you hope to make out of this," said Mr Smythe.

"I intend," said the Captain, "to make a job for the crowner's inquest of you, and those diamonds for myself."

"Don't talk nonsense, man; you won't frighten me, I'm not so easily fooled. Why, if I don't turn up, a dozen men will know where to look for me; besides that, they will hear you shoot next door. Why, if you shoot, you'd be hung."

"You've no call to bother your head about me. I can play this hand without your advice," said the Captain. "See here: first I shoot you; then Jen puts the diamonds away; then I give myself up to the police; Jen confesses; I take my trial, like a man, and show that I shot you because I found you here alone with my wife, after you'd got her to drug my liquor. See here: the whiskey-bottle in the next room is drugged.

Jen has got the paper you wrote out. The chemist she got the stuff from can be found, and you've taken care to let every one know what your game is. What do you think a jury would do to me? You'd have to look a long time before you'd get one who would find me guilty of murder. Hung!

why, I shall be looked upon as the vindicator of the sanct.i.ty of domestic life. Guess they'd get up a testimonial for me."

Then Mr Smythe realised the awkward position in which he was placed.

The man seemed to be in earnest, and there was a determined look in his cruel hard face which made Smythe believe that he dared do what he said; and if he did, it was true that he would be in very little danger of being punished. Smythe could remember a somewhat similar case, in which a jury had endorsed the popular verdict of "Served him right," by finding a prisoner, who had killed the man who had wronged him, not guilty.

He could hear the words of the song which were being sung next door, and he knew that if he shouted out murder he could summon help, but he daren't shout out. Help was near, but the revolver was nearer.

"Stop," he said, catching at a last straw; "you don't know that some one can't prove I had the diamonds with me!"

"I'll chance that," said Hamilton. "You see, no one has ever seen the diamonds but us."

As Hamilton said this Jenny left the room with the diamonds in her hand, and then came back again without them. Smythe felt that he had seen the last of the stones, which were likely to cost him so dear.

"Spare me! for Heaven's sake, spare me! What have I done that you should kill me? Keep the diamonds, and let me go."

"That won't do, I am afraid," said Hamilton; "you might change your mind, and try and get the diamonds back. Of course I don't want to shoot you, but it's the way to play my game."

Then Mrs Hamilton, who had come back into the room, spoke for the first time.

"What's the good of all this talk, Jack? Make haste and get it all over."

Just then, in his extremity, an idea came into Smythe's mind, and again he began to hope.

"Stop," he said. "Why kill me? I have money in the bank. Spare me, and I will write a cheque for five hundred."

"It's risky for me," said Captain Hamilton. "Still, a little ready comes in handy. I will take a thou."

With a very shaky hand Smythe wrote out the cheque for the amount asked for, the Captain still holding the revolver up to his head. Smythe handed over the cheque.

"Now I can go, I suppose?" he said, making for the door.

"Not yet," said the other. "Get the paper, Jen. Now write out a note to me, enclosing the cheque for a card debt," he added, as his wife took down some paper and placed it before their guest. Smythe wrote the letter he required.

"That will do. Now write to Jen, sending her the diamonds."

"What am I to say?" said Smythe.