The Ripening Rubies | Page 2

drop has, the missing star includes four
yellow stones, which the natives declare are ripening rubies. It is only a
superstition, of course; but the gems are full of fire, and as brilliant as
diamonds."
"I know the stones well," said I; "the Burmese will sell you rubies of all
colours if you will buy them, though the blue variety is nothing more
than the sapphire. And how long is it since you missed the pendant?"
"Not ten minutes ago," she answered.
"Which means that your next partner might be the thief?" I suggested.
"Really, a dance is becoming a capital entertainment."
"My next partner is my husband," said she, laughing for the first time,
"and whatever you do, don't say a word to him. He would never forgive
me for losing the rubies."
When she was gone, I, who had come to her dance solely in the hope
that a word or a face there would cast light upon the amazing mystery

of the season's thefts, went down again where the press was, and stood
while the dancers were pursuing the dreary paths of a "square". There
before me were the hundred types one sees in a London
ball-room--types of character and of want of character, of age aping
youth, and of youth aping age, of well-dressed women and ill-dressed
women, of dandies and of the bored, of fresh girlhood and worn
maturity. Mixed in the dazzling mêlée, or swaying to the rhythm of a
music-hall melody, you saw the lean form of boys; the robust forms of
men; the pretty figures of the girls just out; the figures, not so pretty, of
the matrons, who, for the sake of the picturesque, should long ago have
been in. As the picture changed quickly, and fair faces succeeded to
dark faces, and the coquetting eyes of pretty women passed by with a
glance to give place to the uninteresting eyes of the dancing men, I
asked myself what hope would the astutest spy have of getting a clue to
the mysteries in such a room; how could he look for a moment to name
one man or one woman who had part or lot in the astounding robberies
which were the wonder of the town? Yet I knew that if nothing were
done, the sale of jewels in London would come to the lowest ebb the
trade had known, and that I, personally, should suffer loss to an extent
which I did not care to think about.
I have said often, in jotting down from my book a few of the most
interesting cases which have come to my notice, that I am no detective,
nor do I pretend to the smallest gift of foresight above my fellow men.
Whenever I have busied myself about some trouble it has been from a
personal motive which drove me on, or in the hope of serving someone
who henceforth should serve me. And never have I brought to my aid
other weapon than a certain measure of common sense. In many
instances the purest good chance has given to me my only clue; the
merest accident has set me straight when a hundred roads lay before me.
I had come to Lady Faber's house hoping that the sight of some
stranger, a chance word, or even an impulse might cast light upon the
darkness in which we had walked for many weeks. Yet the longer I
stayed in the ball-room the more futile did the whole thing seem.
Though I knew that a nimble-fingered gentleman might be at my very
elbow, that half-a-dozen others might be dancing cheerfully about me
in that way of life to which their rascality had called them, I had not so

much as a hand-breadth of suspicion; saw no face that was not the face
of the dancing ass, or the smart man about town; did not observe a
single creature who led me to hazard a question. And so profound at
last was my disgust that I elbowed my way from the ball-room in
despair; and went again to the conservatory where the palms waved
seductively, and the flying corks of the champagne bottles made music
harmonious to hear.
There were few people in this room at the moment--old General
Sharard, who was never yet known to leave a refreshment table until
the supper table was set; the Rev. Arthur Mellbank, the curate of St.
Peter's, sipping tea; a lean youth who ate an ice with the relish of a
schoolboy; and the ubiquitous Sibyl Kavanagh, who has been vulgarly
described as a garrison hack. She was a woman of many partialities,
whom every one saw at every dance, and then asked how she got
there--a woman with sufficient personal attraction left to remind you
that she was