The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime - Michael Sims [49]
The English prisoner, though severely interrogated by the judge, stood by his story. Inquiry by the police in London proved that what he said of himself was true. His case, however, began to look very serious when two of the men from the launch asserted that they had seen him push the Frenchman overboard, and their statement could not be shaken. All our energies were bent for the next two weeks on trying to find something of the identity of the missing man, or to get any trace of the two Americans. If the tall American were alive, it seemed incredible that he should not have made application for his missing property. All attempts to trace him by means of the Crédit-Lyonnais proved futile.
We made inquiries about every missing man in Paris, but also without result.
The case had excited much attention throughout the world, and doubtless was published in full in the American papers. The Englishman had been in custody three weeks when the Chief of Police of Paris received the following letter:—
“Dear Sir,—On my arrival in New York by the English steamer Lucania, I was much amused to read in the papers accounts of the exploits of detectives, French and English. I am sorry that only one of them seems to be in prison; I think his French confrère ought to be there also. I regret exceedingly, however, that there is the rumour of the death, by drowning, of my friend, Eugène Dubois, of 375, Rue aux Juifs, Rouen. If this is indeed the case, he has met his death through the blunders of the police. Nevertheless, I wish you would communicate with his family at the address I have given, and assure them that I will make arrangements for their future support.
“I may say that I am a manufacturer of imitation diamonds, and, through extensive advertising, have accumulated a fortune of many millions. I was in Europe when the necklace was found, and had in my posssession over a thousand imitation diamonds of my own manufacture. It occurred to me that here was the opportunity of the most magnificent advertisement in the world. I saw the necklace, received its measurements, and also obtained photographs of it taken by the French Government. Then I set my expert friend, Eugène Dubois, at work, and he made an imitation necklace so closely resembling the original that you apparently do not know it is the unreal you have in your possession. I was not nearly so much afraid of the villainy of the crooks as of the blundering of the police, who would have protected me with brass-band vehemence if I could not elude them. I knew that the detectives would overlook the obvious, but would at once follow a clue if I provided one for them. Consequently I laid my plans, just as you have discovered, and got Eugène Dubois up from Rouen to carry the case I gave him down to Havre. I had had another box prepared in brown paper with my address in New York written thereon. The moment I emerged from the auction-room, while my friend the cowboy was holding up the audience, I turned my face to the door, took out the genuine diamonds from the case, and slipped it into the box I had prepared for mailing. Into the genuine case I put the bogus diamonds. After handing the box to Dubois, I turned down a side street, and then into another whose name I do not know, and there in a shop, with sealing-wax and string, did up my packet for posting. I labelled the package ‘Books,’ went to the nearest post-office, paid letter postage, and handed it over unregistered, as if it were of no particular value. After this I went to my rooms in the Grand Hotel, where I had been staying under my own name for more than a month. Next morning I took train for London, and the day after sailed from Liverpool on the Lucania. I arrived before the Gascoigne, which sailed from Havre on Saturday, met my box at the Customs-house, paid duty, and it now