The offense was an old one, and in reality a technical one. It was not a matter in which he cared to move, though, being extremely curious, he did confirm the woman’s statement a week or two afterwards.
At the Greenwich Police Court on the following morning the episode of Mrs. Schtalmeister ended with a fine and a horrific warning from the magisterial bench. She paid the fine and her rent — she had money enough but was by nature miserly — and went back to Keller Row, where she died in the winter of ’23.
The Orator did not know of her passing: he was not interested in people who were law-abiding. He was at the moment engaged in a jewel robbery in Chislehurst and it was rather a complicated case, for, although the thieves were caught, their arrest had been delayed just long enough to allow the fourteen big diamonds in Lady Teighmount’s old-fashioned tiara to disappear. The setting was found, but since the setting had only its Early Victorian value, the Orator was not elated.
“I’m tellin’ you the gospel, Mr. Rater,” said Harry Selt, the principal brigand. “I duffed the sparklers with a fence whose name I don’t know: he works for a Big Feller on the Continent. All I got was two hundred, and that splits four ways. It’s no good me tellin’ you a lie, Mr. Rater; you know how many stand in on a conjure like this.”
No more information than this could be had from Harry, which was unfortunate, for Lady Teighmount, in addition to being a very rich woman, was a family connection of a Cabinet Minister. This exalted man sent for the Orator, and he proved to be very human.
“I am asking a special favor, Mr. Rater,” he said. “My aunt is terribly keen on getting those diamonds back. They were given by her husband in the ’seventies or in some prehistoric year, and she attaches a sentimental value to them. Happily she’s never known that diamond giving was the old boy’s hobby. Now isn’t it possible for you to get hold of some underworld gentleman who could lead you to them? She’s willing to pay two thousand pounds and no questions asked—”
“Which is an illegal inducement,” said Mr. O. Rater soberly.
“I know... I know. The point is, will you, as an act of kindness to me, go out of your official way to recover those stones?”
The Orator nodded. He felt that he had already said too much.
No receiver is to be approached directly, especially by a police officer. The Orator began his tortuous investigations by interviewing one Alf Barkin, a dealer in dogs. It was a long interview and Mr. Barkin said very little. Every few seconds he shook his head and said: “I don’t know nothing about it, Mr. Rater,” or: “If I knew I’d tell you, Mr. Rater,” but in the end Alfred arranged to accompany the detective that night to a small drinking shop in Deptford, where they met Joseph Greid, a dealer in furniture, who knew a man “slightly” (he hastened to qualify the extent of his acquaintanceship) who knew another man who might possibly know a friend of somebody else who in his turn could perhaps get into touch with a friend of the receivers.
For twelve days the Orator pursued his patient way. As was his practice, he said little, listened much and alertly. For he must trap certain vital statements carelessly dropped into the streams of verbiage, must sort essentials from non-essentials, unravel cunningly involved sentences.
In the end he made a journey to Brussels, and there he met by appointment M. Heinrich Dissel.
M. Dissel came to his sitting room at the hotel, a stiff, youngish man with large horn-rimmed spectacles, rather untidy yellow hair and a stiff little furry moustache. He clicked his heels and bowed from the waist, before he offered a cotton-gloved hand.
“Your letter I have had, m’sieu. Be pleased to be seated before I myself, sir.”
He put down the big black portfolio he was carrying, hitched the knees of his well-creased trousers, and sat down on the edge of a chair, exposing as he did so a length of white sock above his brilliantly yellow boot.
“I am merchant and agent, yes? But diamonds seldom. Now in Antwerpen I know several mans who buy, sell diamonds, sometimes goodly bought, sometimes badly bought. Yes, I know them. My brudder in London sent you? He is a good brudder but not amity — how shall you say? — friendtly. We quarrels, make a big row. He gives me plenty money and I love it — piquet, cheval de course, you understand? So we make the big row and no more do we be friendts. When I go to London I telephone, but he say ‘Not to home,’ so we are not friendts.”
He beamed as though his estrangement with his ill-used brother was the greatest joke in the world. The Orator moved uneasily in his chair: such undulations of discomfort were a preliminary to speech.
“That’s all right, M’sieur Dissel; I’m not very much interested in your family troubles. You were good enough to answer my letter about... um... a certain matter. Do I understand that you can buy back these diamonds?”
M. Dissel’s smile was one of triumph. He dived his hand into the inside of his tightly fitting jacket and brought out a fat leather case. This he banged on the table and unfolded with a flourish. From a wad of letters and cards he fished out a packet wrapped in white tissue paper, which, with a deft flick of his finger, he unrolled. The diamonds came into view three by three as he came to the cotton-wool lining.
“Here is!” he said. “For these I pay two hond’erd thirty thousand francs. Of profit I make thirty thousan’ francs — I will not pretend I make no profit.”
The Orator walked to the door of his bedroom and called in the expert he had brought from London. One by one the stones were examined. Henry Dissel was an amused spectator. In the end Mr. O. Rater counted out twenty one-hundred-pound notes and the Belgian folded them carefully and put them in his pocket.
“I suppose, M’sieur Dissel, you are not prepared to give me the name of the man from whom you made this purchase?”
M. Dissel shrugged and shook his head.
“He may be good mans or bad mans,” he said. “If I speak him by name, there should be plenty troubles and questions and reclamations, and then he say: ‘You, M’sieur Dissel, you give me plenty nonsense. Again I will not deal with you,’ isn’t it?”
“Where does your brother carry on business in London?” asked the Orator at parting.
“Theodor has the bureau in Victoria Street. Nomber nine hondred sixty,” replied M. Dissel. “But we are not good friendts. That is sad and against Christian teaching.”
The Orator frowned.
“Theodor? What is his other name?”
“Theodor Louis Hazeborn — mine is Heinrich Frederick Dinehem.”
The Orator looked at him blankly.
“Oh!” he said.
Another man would have said much more, but Chief Inspector Rater was sparing of speech: therefore was he nicknamed by his sardonic peers.
M. Dissel was a Belgian subject and had been engaged in business for ten years, occupying a small office on the Boulevard Militaire. It was a very untidy office, the Orator discovered when he made a visit. Above the desk was a most ornate diploma in a golden frame. It testified to an athletic accomplishment of M. Heinrich Dissel.
He was, as he said, an agent, representing a number of unimportant textile houses, English and German and American. For these he travelled a great deal. He was a member of a club where play was very high, but, although he was a gambler, nothing else was known against him. Occasionally he dealt in precious stones, antiques and even house property. There had been no complaint against him, and he was evidently the sort of man whom international thieves might use as an innocent cover for them in their negotiations.
“Theodor Louis Hazeborn!” The name occurred and recurred to Mr. Rater all the way back to London.
The day he arrived he had the dubious satisfaction of restoring the missing diamonds to their owner — and Lady Teighmount was in an irascible mood. She grudged (she said) every penny of the reward: she thought that if the police could bring about their return for money they could have secured the stones without money; she hinted darkly that she did not exclude the possibility of the police in general and Chief Inspector Rater having shared the reward.