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What Befell Mr. Middleton Because Of The Third Gift Of The Emir
by
“Lost, a diamond and emerald ring. $800
will be paid for its return and no questions asked.
David O. Crecelius.”
The address was that of the house on the Lake Shore Drive which the kleptomaniac had entered! Once more did the scarabaeus seem to be exerting its influence. But for the talisman, he would never have seen the notice, and a little shiver ran through him as he thought of this. Immediately he reclothed himself in his new suit.
“There is time for me to think out a course of action between here and my destination,” said he. “The walking so conducive to reflection can be much better employed in taking me toward the Lake Shore Drive, than in uselessly pacing my room, and I’ll be there when I get through.”
As he traveled eastward, he engaged in a series of ratiocinative processes and the result of the deductive and inductive reasoning which he applied to the case in hand, was as follows:
The kleptomaniac could hardly be a daughter of the house. She would have entered by the front door. If she were the daughter of the house, she would not have had the ring advertised for, counting herself fortunate to get out of the difficulty so cheaply. However, if her parents had noted the absence of the ring, she might have said it was lost and so they advertised, but nothing could have been further from her wishes, for there would be the great danger that the outcome of the advertisement would be a complete exposure. She could easily prevent her parents noticing the ring was gone, at least making satisfactory explanations for not wearing it. With her wealth, she could have it duplicated inside of a few days and her friends never know the original was lost. As this is what the daughter of the house in all probability would have done, the kleptomaniac could hardly have been the daughter of the house. He suspected that she was a lady’s maid, who, wearing her mistress’s jewelry, had purchased her way out of one difficulty at the risk of getting into another. The advertisement would seem to indicate that she was trusted. The disappearance of the ring was apparently not connected with her. The matter was very simple. He would hand over the ring and take the eight hundred dollars and need say nothing that would implicate the young woman, be she daughter of the house and kleptomaniac, or serving-maid and common thief. But one thing puzzled him. Why was the reward greater than the value of the ring?
Eight hundred dollars. The young lady in Englewood was getting nearer.
A bitter east wind was blowing as he walked up to the entrance of the mansion of Mr. David Crecelius. Behind him the street lay all deserted and the melancholy voice of the waves filled the air. Nowhere could he see a light about the house and he was oppressed by a feeling of undefinable apprehension as he pressed the bell. A considerable interval elapsing without any one appearing and a second and a third ringing failing to elicit any response from within the silent pile, he was about to depart, feeling greatly relieved that it was not necessary to hold parley with any one within the gloomy and forbidding edifice, when he heard a sudden light thud at his feet and discovered that the scarabaeus had dropped through a hole in his trousers’ pocket which had at that moment reached a size large enough to allow it to escape. After a hurried search, he had possessed himself of the talisman and was about to depart, when the door swung open before him and a venerable white-haired man stood in a dim green glow. Boldly did Mr. Middleton enter, for had not the talisman delayed him until the venerable man opened the door?
“Come in, sir, come in,” said the venerable man, whom Mr. Middleton saw was none other than David O. Crecelius, the capitalist, whose portraits he had seen again and again in the Sunday papers and the weekly papers of a moral and entertaining nature, accompanying accounts of his life and achievements, with exhortations to the youth of the land to imitate them, advice which Mr. Middleton then and there resolved to follow, reflecting upon the impeccable sources from which it emanated.