“You can’t bluff me, Count Sylvius.” Holmes’s eyes, as he gazed athim, contracted and lightened until they were like two menacingpoints of steel. “You are absolute plate-glass. I see to the very backof your mind.”
“Then, of course, you see where the diamond is!”
Holmes clapped his hands with amusement, and then pointed aderisive finger. “Then you do know. You have admitted it!”
“I admit nothing.”
“Now, Count, if you will be reasonable we can do business. Ifnot, you will get hurt.”
Count Sylvius threw up his eyes to the ceiling. “And you talkabout bluff!” said he.
Holmes looked at him thoughtfully like a master chess-playerwho meditates his crowning move. Then he threw open the tabledrawer and drew out a squat notebook.
“Do you know what I keep in this book?”
“No, sir, I do not!”
“You!”
“Me!”
“Yes, sir, you! You are all here—every action of your vile anddangerous life.”
“Damn you, Holmes!” cried the Count with blazing eyes. “Thereare limits to my patience!”
“It’s all here, Count. The real facts as to the death of old Mrs.
Harold, who left you the Blymer estate, which you so rapidlygambled away.”
“You are dreaming!”
“And the complete life history of Miss Minnie Warrender.”
“Tut! You will make nothing of that!”
“Plenty more here, Count. Here is the robbery in the train deluxeto the Riviera on February 13, 1892. Here is the forged checkin the same year on the Credit Lyonnais.”
“No; you’re wrong there.”
“Then I am right on the others! Now, Count, you are a card-The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes 1279
player. When the other fellow has all the trumps, it saves time tothrow down your hand.”
“What has all this talk to do with the jewel of which you spoke?”
“Gently, Count. Restrain that eager mind! Let me get to thepoints in my own humdrum fashion. I have all this against you;but, above all, I have a clear case against both you and yourfighting bully in the case of the Crown diamond.”
“Indeed!”
“I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabmanwho brought you away. I have the commissionaire who saw younear the case. I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up foryou. Ikey has peached, and the game is up.”
The veins stood out on the Count’s forehead. His dark, hairyhands were clenched in a convulsion of restrained emotion. Hetried to speak, but the words would not shape themselves.
“That’s the hand I play from,” said Holmes. “I put it all uponthe table. But one card is missing. It’s the king of diamonds. Idon’t know where the stone is.”
“You never shall know.”
“No? Now, be reasonable, Count. Consider the situation. Youare going to be locked up for twenty years. So is Sam Merton.
What good are you going to get out of your diamond? None inthe world. But if you hand it over—well, I’ll compound a felony.
We don’t want you or Sam. We want the stone. Give that up, andso far as I am concerned you can go free so long as you behaveyourself in the future. If you make another slip—well, it will be thelast. But this time my commission is to get the stone, not you.”
“But if I refuse?”
“Why, then—alas! —it must be you and not the stone.”
Billy had appeared in answer to a ring.
“I think, Count, that it would be as well to have your friend Samat this conference. After all, his interests should be represented.
Billy, you will see a large and ugly gentleman outside the frontdoor. Ask him to come up.”
“If he won’t come, sir?”
“No violence, Billy. Don’t be rough with him. If you tell him thatCount Sylvius wants him he will certainly come.”
“What are you going to do now?” asked the Count as Billydisappeared.
“My friend Watson was with me just now. I told him that I hada shark and a gudgeon in my net; now I am drawing the net and upthey come together.”
The Count had risen from his chair, and his hand was behindhis back. Holmes held something half protruding from the pocketof his dressing-gown.
1280 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
“You won’t die in your bed, Holmes.”
“I have often had the same idea. Does it matter very much?
After all, Count, your own exit is more likely to be perpendicularthan horizontal. But these anticipations of the future are morbid.
Why not give ourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of thepresent?”
A sudden wild-beast light sprang up in the dark, menacing eyesof the master criminal. Holmes’s figure seemed to grow taller as hegrew tense and ready.
“It is no use your fingering your revolver, my friend,” he said in aquiet voice. “You know perfectly well that you dare not use it, evenI gave you time to draw it. Nasty, noisy things, revolvers, Count.
Better stick to air-guns. Ah! I think I hear the fairy footstep ofyour estimable partner. Good day, Mr. Merton. Rather dull in thestreet, is it not?”
The prize-fighter, a heavily built young man with a stupid,obstinate, slab-sided face, stood awkwardly at the door, lookingabout him with a puzzled expression. Holmes’s debonair mannerwas a new experience, and though he vaguely felt that it washostile, he did not know how to counter it. He turned to his moreastute comrade for help.
“What’s the game now, Count? What’s this fellow want? What’sup?” His voice was deep and raucous.
The Count shrugged his shoulders, and it was Holmes whoanswered.
“If I may put it in a nutshell, Mr. Merton, I should say it was allup.”
The boxer still addressed his remarks to his associate.
“Is this cove trying to be funny, or what? I’m not in the funnymood myself.”
“No, I expect not,” said Holmes. “I think I can promise you thatyou will feel even less humorous as the evening advances. Now,look here, Count Sylvius. I’m a busy man and I can’t waste time.
I’m going into that bedroom. Pray make yourselves quite at homein my absence. You can explain to your friend how the matter lieswithout the restraint of my presence. I shall try over the HoffmanBarcarole’ upon my violin. In five minutes I shall return for yourfinal answer. You quite grasp the alternative, do you not? Shall wetake you, or shall we have the stone?”
