The Diamond Coterie Part 73

[Ill.u.s.tration: There is a flash--a loud report.]

They lay him gently down, and Jasper Lamotte bids them send for a physician; there must be one very near.

But Frank beckons his father to come close, and when the others have drawn back, this is what the father hears, from the son's lips:

"There is another--pistol in--my pocket--I meant it for Evan,--you--had better--use it."

Horrible words from the lips of a dying son. They are his last. Before Doctor Benoit can turn back and reach his side, Frank Lamotte has finished his career of folly, and sin, and shame, dying as he had lived, selfishly, like a coward.

CHAPTER XLIV.

A SPARTAN MOTHER.

"I never before in all my career, brought to justice a criminal whom I both pitied unreservedly, and justified fully. Viewing all things from his standpoint, Evan Lamotte is less a murderer than a martyr."

It is the day after the trial with so strange an ending. They are seated in O'Meara's library; Constance, Mrs. Aliston, Mrs. O'Meara, Sir Clifford, his brother, the Honorable George Heathercliffe, Ray Vandyck, O'Meara, and Mr. Bathurst. Mr. Bathurst, who now appears what he _is_; a handsome gentleman, about thirty years of age, clever, vivacious, eminently agreeable. Mr. Wedron, like Brooks, has served out his day, and been set aside.

They have a.s.sembled at the detective's request, and while fully expecting a revelation of some sort, they look a serene, and not an apprehensive party.

"Poor Evan," sighs Constance; "I pity him most sincerely; I shall go and see him."

"_We_ will go and see him," corrects Sir Clifford, and she smiles, and does not dispute the correction.

"Before I begin my other story," says the detective, "I may as well tell you of my visit yesterday, and how my news was received.

"From the moment when I heard Miss Wardour's description of Evan Lamotte, I knew he was our man. But I was determined to have no more mistakes. So I kept my opinion to myself. You can imagine how anxiously I hung upon the words of Doctor Benoit, knowing that upon this boy's chances for life hung Sir Clifford's life, liberty, and honor.

"When I saw that poor, pale, wreck of humanity, my heart almost failed me. How could I drag his secret from him? But no time was to be lost, and, as best I could, I told him everything. First, that his sister believed herself the guilty one; guilty, at least, in that she had instigated the deed, and next, that Sir Clifford was now the victim of this crime. His mind at once seemed to grasp the issue. He had listened to me intently, breathlessly almost; he now lifted himself suddenly from the bed, and said quickly:

"'Why, then, it seems I have not saved Sybil yet. Call my mother! let me see her alone.'

"I obeyed him without a question; they were alone together for a long half hour, then Mrs. Lamotte came to me with the same look upon her face that you saw in court.

"'Evan tells me that you know everything,' she said, her voice trembling in spite of herself. 'He tells me that you are a detective. Then you know that I have _one_ son of whom I may be proud. Evan Lamotte has saved his sister's honor. Saved it doubly. My weak, my ill-used Evan, has proven the only man a man's pride, who bears the name of Lamotte, because he could not see his sister and his mother contaminated by the presence of the monster his father and brother had been so base as to force upon us; he has taken justice into his own hands. He has freed his sister; he has saved her from crime, and now he stands ready to put himself in the place of a wronged and innocent man. I shall go with him into court; I shall not leave him again.'

"She broke off with a dry sob and turned away to prepare for the drive.

"How I pitied that proud woman. How tender she was of her lost boy, and how he clung to her.

"Mr. O'Meara," turning suddenly toward the lawyer, "we must get that poor fellow out of that cell. Doctor Benoit says that he can live but a short time at best. He must not die there, and justice can not deal with a dying man."

"I think it can be managed," replied the lawyer. "All W---- will favor the scheme. Not a man or woman will raise their voice against that dying boy. He will have plenty of friends _now_."

"He shall find them strong friends, too," exclaimed Constance. "Mrs.

O'Meara, we will stir up the whole town."

"Then you'll get your way," put in Bathurst. "And now. Miss Wardour, are you ready to hear the end of the mystery surrounding the Wardour robbery, and the Wardour diamonds?"

All eyes were turned at once upon the speaker.

"Because I have asked you all to meet me here to-day that I might tell it," he went on. "It will contain much that is new to you all, and it will interest you all. I know Miss Wardour will wish you all to hear the end of her diamond case, and the fate of her robbers."

"Of course! You are perfectly right, Mr. Bathurst," said Constance.

"Doctor Heath cuts more of a figure than he knows in this business, and Ray has staid out in the cold long enough. Go on, Mr. Bathurst, expose me in all my iniquity. But have you _really_ found the robbers?"

"Listen," said the detective, and while they all fixed upon him their gravest attention he began.

CHAPTER XLV.

TOLD BY A DETECTIVE.

"For several years past," began Mr. Bathurst, "the city and many of the wealthier suburban towns have been undergoing a systematic overhauling.

Through the network of big thefts, and little thefts, pet.i.t larcenies and bank robberies, there has run one clear-cut burglarious specialty--a style of depredations noticeably similar in case after case; alike in 'design and execution,' and always baffling to the officers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bathurst telling the story.]

"I allude to a series of robberies of jewelry and plate, a succession of provoking thefts, monstrous, enough to be easily traced, but executed with such exceeding _finesse_ that, in no single instance, has the property been recovered, or the robbers run to earth.

"These fastidious thieves never took money in large amounts, only took plate when it was of the purest metal and least c.u.mbersome sort; and always aimed for the brightest, the purest, the costliest diamonds.

Diamonds indeed seemed their specialty.

"This gang has operated in such a gingerly, gentlemanly, mysterious manner, and has raided for diamonds so long and so successfully, that they have come to be called, among New York detectives, The Diamond Coterie, although no man knew whether they numbered two, or twenty.

"They could always recognize their handiwork, however, and whenever the news came that some lady in the city, or suburbs, had lost her diamonds, and that the thieves had made a 'clean job' of it, the officers said, 'that's the work of the Diamond Coterie.'

"I have been much abroad of late, but every time I came back to New York the Coterie had gathered fresh jewels into its treasure box, and no man had found a clue to the sly fellows.

"I began to feel interested in the clique and resolved to take a hand at them, at the first opportunity. That opportunity came, with the news of the great Wardour robbery, and I came down to W----.

"I saw enough in this robbery to interest me, for various reasons.

"I believed I could see distinctly the handiwork of the Diamond Coterie, and I saw another thing; it was the first piece of work I had known them to bungle. And they had bungled in this.

"I made some of my conclusions known to Miss Wardour and her friends, but I kept to myself the most important ones.

"The story of the chloroform, so carefully administered, was one of the things over which I pondered much; I borrowed the chloroform bottle and the piece of linen that had been used to apply the drug, and that night I accepted the hospitality proffered me by Sir Clifford. I took a wax impression of the vial, at his house, and I made an important discovery while there.

"Sir Clifford found me half famished and ordered his housekeeper to bring in a lunch. Not wishing my ident.i.ty known, I pretended to be a patient; and just as my host was leaving the room, he tossed me a handkerchief, which he took from a side table, bidding me make myself a bandage to partially conceal my face.

"Now my eyes are trained to see much at a glance, and the moment they fell upon that bit of white linen they were riveted there.