The Pursuit of the House-Boat | Page 8

them. If you'd had a
watch, you'd have looked at it, not at my clock.'
"My visitor laughed, and repeated what he had said about my being a
wonderful man.
"'And the dents which my son made cutting his teeth?' he added.
"'Invariably go with an American's watch. Rubber or ivory rings aren't
good enough for American babies to chew on,' said I. 'They must have
gold watches or nothing.'
"'And finally, how did you know I was a rich American?' he asked.
"'Because no other can afford to stop at hotels like the Savoy in the
height of the season,' I replied, thinking that the jest would end there,
and that he would now reveal his identity and speak of the tiara. To my
surprise, however, he did nothing of the sort.
"'You have an almost supernatural gift,' he said. 'My name is Bunker. I
am stopping at the Savoy. I am an American. I was rich when I arrived
here, but I'm not quite so bloated with wealth as I was, now that I have
paid my first week's bill. I have lost my watch; such a watch, too, as
you describe, even to the dents. Your only mistake was that the dents
were made by my son John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot but
wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so much alike that it
sometimes baffles even their mother to tell them apart. The watch has

no very great value intrinsically, but the associations are such that I
want it back, and I will pay £200 for its recovery. I have no clew as to
who took it. It was numbered--'
"Here a happy thought struck me. In all my description of the watch I
had merely described my own, a very cheap affair which I had won at a
raffle. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not
on the instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having
purloined his wife's tiara. Why should I not deceive him, and at the
same time get rid of my poor chronometer for a sum that exceeded its
value a hundredfold?"
"Good business!" cried Shylock.
The stranger smiled and bowed.
"Excellent," he said. "I took the words right out of his mouth. 'It was
numbered 86507B!' I cried, giving, of course, the number of my own
watch.
"He gazed at me narrowly for a moment, and then he smiled. 'You
grow more marvellous at every step. That was indeed the number. Are
you a demon?'
"'No,' I replied. 'Only something of a mind-reader.'
"Well, to be brief, the bargain was struck. I was to look for a watch that
I knew he hadn't lost, and was to receive £200 if I found it. It seemed to
him to be a very good bargain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of
view, feeling, as he did, that there never having been any such watch, it
could not be recovered, and little suspecting that two could play at his
little game of deception, and that under any circumstances I could foist
a ten-shilling watch upon him for two hundred pounds. This business
concluded, he started to go.
"'Won't you have a little Scotch?' I asked, as he started, feeling, with all
that prospective profit in view, I could well afford the expense. 'It is a
stormy night.'

"'Thanks, I will,' said he, returning and seating himself by my
table--still, to my surprise, keeping his hat on.
"'Let me take your hat,' I said, little thinking that my courtesy would
reveal the true state of affairs. The mere mention of the word hat
brought about a terrible change in my visitor; his knees trembled, his
face grew ghastly, and he clutched the brim of his beaver until it
cracked. He then nervously removed it, and I noticed a dull red mark
running about his forehead, just as there would be on the forehead of a
man whose hat fitted too tightly; and that mark, gentlemen, had the
undulating outline of nothing more nor less than a tiara, and on the
apex of the uppermost extremity was a deep indentation about the size
of a shilling, that could have been made only by some adamantine
substance! The mystery was solved! The robber of the Duchess of
Brokedale stood before me."
A suppressed murmur of excitement went through the assembled spirits,
and even Messrs. Hawkshaw and Le Coq were silent in the presence of
such genius.
"My plan of action was immediately formulated. The man was
completely at my mercy. He had stolen the tiara, and had it concealed
in the lining of his hat. I rose and locked the door. My visitor sank with
a groan into my chair.