McAllister and his Double/The Maximilian Diamond

OCKBRIDGE yawned, threw down his fountain-pen, whirled his chair away from the window, through which the afternoon sun was pouring a dazzling flood of light, crossed his feet upon the rickety old table whose faded green baize was littered with newspapers, law books, copies of indictments, and empty cigarette boxes, and idly contemplated the graphophone, his latest acquisition. To a stranger, this little office, tucked away behind an elevator shaft under the eaves of the Criminal Courts Building, might have proved of some interest, filled as it was on every side with mementoes of hard-fought cases in the courts below, framed copies of forged checks and notes, photographs of streets and houses known to fame only by virtue of the tragedies they had witnessed, and an uncouth collection of weapons of all varieties from a stiletto and long tapering bread knife to the most modern Colt automatic. On the bookcase stood an innocent-looking bottle which had once contained poison, while above it hung a faded indictment accusing someone long since departed of administering its contents to another who did "for a long time languish, and languishing did die." An enormous black leather lounge, a safe, several chairs, and some pictures of English and American jurists completed the contents of the room. Here Dockbridge had for five years interviewed his witnesses, prepared his cases, and dreamed of establishing a forensic reputation which should later by a shower of gold repay him in part for the many tedious hours passed within its walls. From the grimy windows he could look down upon the court-yard of the Tombs and see the prisoners taking their daily exercise, while from the distance came faintly the din and rattle of Broadway. An air-shaft which passed through the room communicated in some devious manner with the prison pens on the mezzanine floor far beneath, and at times strange odors would come floating up bringing suggestions of prison fare. On such occasions Dockbridge would throw wide both windows, open the transom, and seek refuge in the library.

Taken as a whole, his five years there had been invaluable both from a personal and professional point of view. He had found himself from the very first day in a sort of huge legal clinic, where hourly he could run through the whole gamut of human emotions. It was to him, the embryonic advocate, what hospital service is to the surgeon. He was, as it were, an intern practising the surgery of the law. And what a multitude of cases came there for treatment—every disease of the mind and heart and soul! For a year or two he had been racked nervously and emotionally, forced from laughter in one moment, to tears the next. Then the mere fascination of his trade as prosecutor, the marshalling of evidence, the tactics of trials, the thwarting of conspiracies, the analysis of motives, the exposure of cunning tricks to liberate the guilty, had so possessed his mind that the suffering and sin about him, though keenly realized, no longer cost him sleep and peace of mind. And the stories that he heard! The mysteries which were unravelled before his very eyes, and those deeper mysteries the secrets of which were never revealed, but remained sealed in the hearts of those who, rather than disclose them, sought sanctuary within prison walls!

How he wished sometimes that he could write—if only a little! Through what strange labyrinths of human passion and ingenuity could he conduct his readers! Sometimes he tried to scribble the stories down, but the words would not come. How could you describe your feelings while trying a man for his life, when he sat there at the bar pallid and tense, his hands clutching each other until the nails quivered in the flesh; the groan of the convicted felon; the wail of the heart-broken mother as her son was led away by the officer? He had seen one poor fellow faint dead away on hearing his sentence to the living tomb; and had heard a murderer laugh when convicted and the day set for his execution. Sometimes, in sheer desperation at the thought of losing what he had seen and experienced, he would turn on the graphophone and talk into it, disconnectedly, by the hour. It usually came out in better shape than what he turned off with his pen. If he could only write!

"Dockbridge! Hi, there, Dockbridge!"

The door was kicked open, and the lank figure of one of his associates stood before him. His visitor grinned, and removed his pipe.

"Bob'll be up in a minute. Come along to 'Coney.'"

"Don't feel kittenish enough," answered Dockbridge.

"Oh, come on! It'll do you good."

The sound of rapid steps flew up the stairs, and Bob burst into the room, almost upsetting the first arrival.

"What are you doing up here in this smelly place?" he inquired. "Got a cigarette?"

Dockbridge threw him a package without altering his position.

At this moment the heavily built figure of the chief of staff entered.

"Holding a reception?" he asked good-naturedly.

Bob had slipped behind the owner of the graphophone and was rapidly surveying his desk. Suddenly he pounced on a pile of yellow paper, and, snatching it up, ran across the room.

"I thought so! He's been writing."

"Here you, Bob, give that back!" cried Dockbridge, springing up. He was blocked by the chief of staff.

"Fair play, now. It may be libellous. The censor demands the right of inspection."

"Oh, I don't mind if you see it!" said Dockbridge, "only I don't intend that cub to snicker over it. It's nothing, anyway."

"'The Maximilian Diamond!'" shouted the thief. "By George, what a rippin' title! Full of gore, I bet!"

"You give that back!" growled its owner.

"Gentlemen, allow me to present the well-known author and brilliant young literary man, Mr. John Dockbridge, whose picture in four colors is soon to appear on the cover of the 'Maiden's Gaslog Companion,'" continued Bob. "I read, 'The villain stood with his dagger elevated for an instant above the bare breast of his palpitating victim.' My, but it's great!"

"You see you'd better read it to us in self-defence," remarked the chief of staff. "Go ahead!"

"Promise, and I'll give it back," said Bob, from the door. "Refuse, and I send it to the 'American.'"

"It wasn't for publication, anyway," explained Dockbridge.

"Of course not," answered Bob. "We'll pass on it. Perhaps we'll send it in for that Five-Thousand-Dollar competition."

"Well, shut up, and I will. Give it here!" Dockbridge recovered the manuscript and returned to his armchair. The others disposed themselves upon the lounge.

"Oyez! Oyez!" cried Bob. "All persons desiring to hear the great American novel, draw near, give your attention and ye shall be heard."

"Keep still!" ordered the chief of staff. "Go ahead, Jack. I'll make him shut up."

"Mind you do," said Dockbridge. "It's about that big diamond, you know. The story begins in this room."

"Well, begin it," laughed Bob.

His companions pulled his head down on the chief's lap and smothered him with a handkerchief.

"Well," said Dockbridge rather sheepishly, "here goes."

A stout, jovial-looking person, with reddish hair, sandy complexion, and watery blue eyes, stood waiting in my office, his wrist attached by means of a nickel-plated handcuff to that of a keeper. My two visitors conducted themselves with remarkable unanimity, and with but a single motion sank into the chairs I offered.

"Well, what's the trouble?" I inquired genially.

The keeper jerked his thumb in the direction of the other, who grinned apologetically and hitched in my direction. Bending toward me, he whispered: "I am the victim of one of the most remarkable conspiracies in history. My story involves personages of the highest rank, and is stranger than one of Dumas' romances. I am a bill-poster."

Not knowing whether he intended to include himself among the illustrious persons alluded to, I nodded encouragingly and produced some cigars.

"My name is Riggs," continued the prisoner, as he bit off the end of his cigar and expelled it through the window. "Got a match?"

The keeper drew a handful from his pocket. I lit a cigar for myself and assumed an attitude of attention.

"My wife is little Flossie Riggs. Don't know her? Why, she dances at Proctor's, and all over. I was doing well at my trade, and would have been doing better, if it hadn't been for that confounded diamond. It was this way. There was a fellow named Tenney, who posted bills with me about five years back, and he finally got a job down in the City of Mexico with a railroad, and I used to correspond with him.

"Among other things, he told me about a great big diamond that the Emperor Maximilian used to wear in the middle of his crown. According to Tenney, it was one of the biggest on record. He said that Maximilian was so stuck on it that he had it taken out and made into a pendant for the Empress Carlotta, and that she used to wear it around at all the court functions, and so on. About the same time he took two other diamonds out of the crown and made them into finger-rings for himself.

"After a while the Mexicans got tired of having an empire and put Maximilian out of business. They stood him and two of his generals up in the parade ground at Queretaro and shot 'em. Now when he was stood up to get shot he had those two rings on his fingers, and the funny part of it was that when the people rushed up to see whether he was dead or not, both the rings were gone. Just about that time, while Carlotta was in prison, the diamond with the big pendant disappeared too. It weighed thirty-three carats. I got all this from Tenney. I don't know where he found out about it. But it all happened way back in '67.

"Somehow or other I used to think quite a lot about that diamond—partly because I was sorry for Max, who looked to have come out at the small end; and there didn't seem to be any occasion for shooting him anyhow, that I could see.

"Well, I went on bill-posting, and got a good job with the Hair Restorer folks and was doing well, as I said, until one day I happened to take up a paper and read that there were two Mexicans out in St. Louis trying to sell an enormous diamond, but that the dealers there were all afraid to buy it. Finally the police got suspicious, and the Mexicans disappeared. Then all of a sudden it came over me that this must be the diamond that Tenney had wrote about, for all that it had been lost for nearly forty years, and I made up my mind that the Mexicans, having failed in St. Louis, would probably come to New York. I knew they had no right to the diamond anyway, first because it belonged to Maximilian's heirs, and second because it hadn't paid no duty; and I said to myself, 'Next time I write to Tenney he will hear something that will make him sit up.' So every morning, when I started out with my paste-pot and roll of posters, I would keep my eye peeled for the two Mexicans.

"But I didn't hear any more about the diamond for a long time, and I had 'most forgot all about it, until one day I was plastering up one of those yellow-headed Hair Restorer girls in Madison Square, when I saw two chaps cross over Twenty-third Street toward the Park. They were the very gazeebos I'd been looking for. Both were dark and thin and short, and, queerer still, one of them carried a big red case in his hand.

"With my heart rattling against my teeth, I jumped down from the ladder and started after them. They hurried along the street until they came to a jeweller's on Broadway, about a block from the Square. They went in, and I peeked through the window. Presently out they came in a great hurry. They still had the red case, and I made a dash for the door and rushed in. There was the store-keeper with eyes bulgin' half-way out of his head.

"'Say,' says I, 'did those dagoes try to sell you a diamond?'

"'Yes,' says he, 'the biggest I ever saw. They wanted forty thousand dollars for it, and I offered them fifteen thousand, but they wouldn't take it.'

"I didn't give him time for another word, but turned around and made another jump for the door. The Mexicans were almost out of sight, but I could still see them walking toward the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and I hustled after them tight as I could, picked up two cops on the way down, and, just as they were turning in at the entrance, we pounced on 'em.

"'You're under arrest!' I yelled, so excited I didn't really know what I was doing. The fellow with the red case dodged back and handed it over to a big chap who had joined them. This one didn't appear to want to take it, and seemed quite peevish at what was happening. He turned out afterward to have been a General Dosbosco of the Haytien Junta. Well, the cops grabbed all three of them and collared the leather case. Sure enough, so help me—! There inside was the big diamond, and not only that, but a necklace with eighteen stones, and two enormous solitaire rings. The big stone was yellowish, but the others were pure white, sparklin' like one of those electric Pickle signs with fifty-seven varieties. By that time the hurry-up wagon had come, and pretty soon the whole crew of us, diamonds, Mexicans, cops, paste-pot, and me, were clattering to the police-station for fair. There I told 'em all about the diamond, and they telephoned over to Colonel Dudley, at the Custom-house, and the upshot of the whole matter was that the two Mexicans were held on a charge of smuggling diamonds into the United States.

"If you don't believe what I tell you," said Riggs, noticing, perhaps, a suggestion of incredulity in my face, "just look at these"; and fumbling in his pocket, he produced some very soiled and crumpled clippings, containing pictures of Maximilian, the Empress Carlotta, and of a very large diamond which appeared to be about the size of the "Regent." It was then that I dimly remembered reading something of a diamond seizure a short time before, and it was with a renewed interest that I listened to the continuation of my client's story.

"Well," said Riggs, "that was strange, now, wasn't it?

"You can imagine how I felt when I went home and told little Flossie about the diamond; that I was entitled to a fifty per cent. informer's reward; how I was going to give up bill-posting and just be her manager, and how we could take a bigger flat, and all that; and I thought so much about it, and talked so much about it, that I began to feel like I was Rockefeller already, which may account in part for what happened afterward."

At this point the keeper moved uneasily, and I pushed him another cigar.

"Well," continued Riggs, "I just walked on air that afternoon after leaving the Custom-house, and went around blabbing like a poor fool about my good luck. On the way home I stopped in to take a drink. There were a lot of my acquaintances there, and I had something with most of them, and then the first thing I knew everything swam before my eyes. I groped my way into the street and started toward home, but I had only taken a few steps when a gang of strong-arm men attacked me, knocked me down, and robbed me. I struggled to my feet and followed them. They turned and attacked me again. I drew my knife, and then everything got dark, and the next thing I knew I was in the police-station.

"I'll admit that this part of it does seem a little queer." Riggs dropped his voice mysteriously and leaned toward me. "But I have no doubt that I was drugged and beaten for the purpose of getting me locked up in the Tombs as part of a well-planned scheme. You will see for yourself later on.

"Next morning, while I was waiting examination in the prison pen, a man came along who said he was a lawyer and would take my case. I said, All right, but that he would have to wait for his pay. He laughed, and said he guessed there would be no trouble about that; and the next thing I knew I was up before the Judge. My lawyer went up and whispered something to him, and the magistrate said:

"'Five hundred dollars bail for trial.'

"'Look here,' I spoke up, 'ain't I going to have a chance to tell my story?'

"'Keep quiet,' said the lawyer from behind his hand; 'this is just a form. You won't never have to be tried. It's just to get you out.'

"So I said nothing, and went back to the pen and waited; and the next thing I knew the hurry-up wagon had taken me to the Tombs. I tell you it was pretty tough bein' chucked in with a lot of thieves and burglars. The bill of fare ain't above par, you know, and the company's worse. I sat in my cell and waited and waited for my lawyer to show up, for he had said he'd be right over. But he didn't come, and I had to spend the night there. Next morning the keeper told me that my lawyer was in the counsel-room. So down I went with two niggers, who also had an appointment with their lawyers. It's a nasty, unventilated hole, and they lock you and the attorneys all in together. Ever been there?"

I shook my head.

"'Well,' says he, 'now have you got a bondsman?'

"'A what?' says I.

"'A bondsman—someone to go bail for you.'

"'No,' I answered, for I knew nothing about such things.

"'What! I thought you told me you had a lot of friends who had money! You haven't been trifling with me, have you?'

"I knew I hadn't told him anything of the sort, but I thought that maybe he had forgotten; so I said I hadn't any friends who had any money, and knew no one to go bail for me.

"'Bad! very bad!' said he. 'You've got to have money to get out. Isn't there anyone who owes you money, or haven't you got some claim or something?'

"Then all of a sudden it flashed over me about the diamond and my fifty per cent. of the reward, and then something in his eye made me think again. It seemed to me that I had seen him before somewhere. I couldn't remember just where, but the more I hesitated the surer I was. Then it came over me that a few days in jail, more or less, made mighty little difference when I was going to be a rich man so soon, and I decided I had better hang on to what I'd got.

"'No,' said I, 'I ain't got nothin'.'

"'You lie!' says he, growing very red. 'You lie! You've got a claim against the United States Government.'

"Then he saw he'd made a break.

"'Why, they all told me you caught a smuggler, or something, and had a claim against the Government for a hundred dollars.'

"'A hundred!' I yelled. 'Twenty thousand!'

"'Oh!' said he, 'as much as that? Why, I'll get you out this afternoon.'

"'How?' said I.

"'Well, you will have to assign your claim so I can raise the money on it. It's a mere form.'

"But the thought came into my mind, Better stay there ten years than let him have the claim; so I said that I didn't understand such things, and I'd just wait until I could be tried.

"'Tried?' said he. 'Why, you won't be tried for months.'

"My heart sank right down into my boots.

"'Don't be a fool!' he went on. 'Here you are, sick and in prison, and if you don't raise money to get a bondsman you'll stay here a long time. You might die. And if you assign that claim to me, I have a pull with the Judge and I'll have you out by supper-time.'

"'I guess I'll wait awhile,' said I.

"'Think it over, anyway. Now I tell you what I'll do. To-morrow you go up for pleading. You have to say whether you are guilty or not guilty. I'll act as your lawyer and see you through that part of it for nothing, and then if you still don't want to assign the claim, why, you can do as you choose.'

"That seemed fair enough, so I agreed. I spent another night in the cells, and next day about thirty of us were taken across the bridge into the court-room. One by one we were led up to the bar, and the clerk asked us were we guilty or not guilty. The ones that said they were guilty went off to Sing Sing or Blackwell's Island. It scared the life out of me. I was afraid that I might not be able to say 'not,' and so get sent off too, but pretty soon I saw my lawyer.

"'P. Llewellyn Riggs!'

"Up jumped Mr. Lawyer and says, 'Not guilty.'

"'What day?' asked the clerk.

"'The 21st,' says Mr. Lawyer.

"I was dumb for a minute.

"'Look here,' I whispered. 'To-day's only the first—that's three weeks.'

"'Keep quiet,' shouted an officer, and gave me a punch in the back.

"'It's all right,' whispered Mr. Lawyer. 'It's only a form.' And they hustled me out back to the Tombs.

"I didn't hear anything all that day or the next. It seemed as if I should go mad. But at last I was notified that my lawyer was there again, and down I went glad enough for the change. By that time I was feeling pretty seedy.

"'Well, young man,' said he, 'can we do business?'

"'That depends,' I answered.

"'Come, no fooling, now; if you want to get out, give me an assignment of your claim.'

"'Never,' I replied.

"'Then to h—— with you!' he shouted; 'you can rot here alone and try your case by yourself, and I hope you'll get twenty years.'

"I almost sank through the floor. Twenty years!"

Riggs had become quite dramatic, and was again leaning forward looking me straight in the eyes.

"Well, I stood fast, and he cursed me out and left me, and I began to feel that after all maybe I was a fool. I hadn't let my wife know where I was, but now I wrote to her, and she came right down and comforted me. A brave little woman she is, too. And what was more, she said that a nice young lawyer had just moved into our house and had the flat below, and she would go and get him.

"So next morning—I had been in there a week—the young lawyer came. I liked him from the start. When I told him my first lawyer's name he just leaned back and laughed.

"'Old Todd?' he says; 'why, he's the worst robber in the outfit. If he had gotten that assignment he'd have let you lie here forever and been in Paris by this time. You're a lucky man,' says he.

"Well, I thought so too, and laughed with him.

"'But,' he continued, 'you're in an embarrassing position. You can't get out without money, and you can't collect your claim. You'll have to assign it to someone. You can't assign it to your wife. That wouldn't be valid. Haven't you got some friend?'

"'I'm afraid not,' said I.

"'That's unfortunate,' he remarked, looking out where the window ought to be. 'Very unfortunate. I might lend you a couple of hundred myself,' he added. 'I will, too!'

"The blood jumped right up in my throat.'

"'God bless you!' said I, 'you're a true friend!'

"He laid his hand on my shoulder.

"'You're in hard luck, old man, but you're going to win out. I'll stand by you. Here's a five. I'll go out and get the rest right off.'

"Then all of a sudden I began to feel like a king. I could see myself in a new suit, having a bottle up at the Haymarket. I realized that I was a twenty-thousand-dollar millionaire. And just to show my chest, I said:

"'Why, you're an honest man and a true friend. You take my claim and go and collect it this afternoon,' says I.

"'No,' he hesitated, 'it's too much responsibility. I'll trust you for the money and you can pay me afterward.'

"But with that, ass that I was, I fell to begging him to take the claim, and saying he must take it, just to show he believed I trusted him; and so after a while he reluctantly yielded and filled out a paper, and I signed it and got in the warden as a witness, and he rose to go.

"'Well, till this afternoon,' says he.

"'Au revoir,' I laughed, 'get yourself a bottle of wine for me,' says I. And off he goes.

"As I passed back to the cells, who should I see beside the door but my old lawyer.

"I shook my fist in his face.

"'You old robber,' I says, 'we'll see if I can't get along without you!'

"He sneered in my face.

"'Oh, you —— fool!' says he, 'you poor, poor, ——, —— fool!'

"Then he was gone. So I went back to the cell, and sang and whistled and figured on where I should take my little Flossie for dinner. I waited and waited. Six o'clock, and no word. Then I began to get nervous.

"'You poor, poor, ——, —— fool!'

"The words rang around in my cell. Then something sort of gave inside. I knew I'd been robbed, and I yelled and shook the bars of the door and tried to get out. I cried for Flossie. The keepers came and told me to keep still; but I was plump crazy, and kept on yelling until everything got black and I fainted."

"And your lawyer never came back?"

"He never came back!" Riggs exclaimed. "He never came back! I've been robbed! I'm a poor —— fool, just as Todd said I was." Riggs burst into maudlin tears.

I gave him what consolation I could, and promised thoroughly to investigate his story.

The keeper and Riggs arose in unison, the same urbane smile that had previously illuminated the countenance of the latter restored.

"You couldn't manage to let me have a handful of cigars, could you?" he whispered. I gave him all I had. His cheek was irresistible. I would have given him my watch had he intimated a desire for it.

Then I called up the Custom-house.

"Paid?" came back the voice of the United States District Attorney. "Of course not. The claim is worthless until the diamond is sold; and, anyway, such an assignment as you describe is invalid under our statutes. You had better execute a revocation, however, and place it on file here. Yes, I'll look out for the matter."

One day, about a week later, I was informed that Riggs had been convicted of assault, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment on Blackwell's Island. A jury of his peers had apparently proved less credulous than myself.

Many strange epistles from his place of confinement now reached me, hinting of terrible abuses, starvation, oppression, extortion. He was still the victim of a conspiracy—this time of prison guards and fellow convicts. He prayed for an opportunity to lay the facts before the authorities. I threw the letters aside. It was clear he possessed a powerful imagination, and yet his tale of the discovery of the diamond had been absolutely true. Well, let the law take its course.

A year later a jovial-looking person called at my office, and I recognized my old friend Riggs in a new brown derby hat and checked suit.

After shaking hands warmly, he presented me with a card reading:

"Yes," he explained in answer to my surprised expression, "I've gone into the detective business. My unfortunate conviction is only a sort of advertisement, you know, and then I was the victim of an outrageous conspiracy!"

"But," said I, "I thought you were going to retire on the proceeds of the diamond."

"Why, haven't you heard?" he replied. "I gave my wife an assignment of the claim with a power of attorney, and when the diamond was sold she ran away."

"Ran away?"

"Yes; she took a friend of mine with her. But I shall find her—just as I did the diamond!" He struck a Sherlock Holmes attitude. "By the way, if you should ever want any detective work done you'll remember——"

"I am not likely to forget," I answered, "the victim of one of the most remarkable conspiracies in history."

Meantime the Mexicans were tried, convicted, and sent to prison. The jewels themselves were duly made the subject of condemnation proceedings, and whoso peruseth The Federal Reporter for the year 1901 may read thereof under the title "The United States vs. One Diamond Pendant and Two Ear-rings." They were, so to speak, tried, properly convicted, and sold to the highest bidder. The Mexicans are still serving out their time. One turned state's evidence, stating that he was a musician and had won the love of a beautiful señorita in the city of Mexico who had given him the gems to sell in order that they might have money upon which to marry. He also protested that his sweetheart had inherited them from her mother.

Inside the cover of the old red case is printed in gold letters:

And a faintly scented piece of violet note-paper lies beneath the double lining, containing, in a woman's hand, this:

But that is all; there is nothing to tell what hand snatched the jewels from the lifeless fingers of the dead Emperor, or who purloined the necklace from the royal household.

In a dusty compartment on my desk there lies a brown manila envelope, and sometimes, when the day's work is over and I have glanced for the last time across the court-yard of the Tombs at the clock tower on the New York Life Building, I take it out and idly read the press story of the famous diamond. And there rises dimly before me the pathetic scene at Queretaro where a brave and good man met his death, and I wonder if perchance there is any truth in the superstition that some stones carry ill-luck with them. But it is a far cry from the Emperor of Mexico to a New York bill-poster.

Dockbridge threw the manuscript on his desk and lit a cigarette.

"Is that all?" asked the lank deputy, stretching himself. "I thought it was going to have some sort of a plot."

"It's a pretty good story," said the chief of staff. "Have you really got any clippings?"

"I think it's rotten!" remarked Bob.

"Well, it's every word of it true, anyway," muttered Dockbridge.