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Updated: May 31, 2025
Instead of answering one way or another, James asked how the Expert was getting on. "Has your old man found out where the diamonds are?" "Not yet." "Then we'll wait till he does." "Do you believe my word?" Mrs. Westerfield asked curtly. James Bellbridge answered, with Roman brevity, "No." This was an insult; Mrs. Westerfield expressed her sense of it. She rose, and pointed to the door.
The one event that had happened, since the appearance of the paragraph in the New York journal, was the confinement of James Bellbridge in an asylum, as a madman under restraint without hope of recovery. Mrs.
Bellbridge, resting his fists on the writing-table, answered that he had come to look at the cipher on his own sole responsibility, and that he insisted on seeing it immediately. "Allow me to show you something else first," was the reply he received to this assertion of his will and pleasure. "Do you know a loaded pistol, sir, when you see it?"
She had hardly glanced at the first words before a cry of alarm escaped her. "Dreadful news for Miss Westerfield!" she exclaimed. "Read it, Randal." He read these words: "The week's list of insolvent traders includes an Englishman named James Bellbridge, formerly connected with a disreputable saloon in this city.
A brute. There!" "A brute!" The very words which the new Mrs. Bellbridge had herself used when the Expert had irritated her. With serious misgivings, she, too, turned her steps in the direction of the garden. James had already followed her instructions and used his chisel. The plank lay loose on the floor. With both his big hands he rapidly cleared away the mould and the rubbish.
Emotions for which he was not prepared overcame this much injured man; he stared at the bride in helpless surprise. That inestimable moment of weakness was all Mrs. Bellbridge asked for. Bewildered by his own transformation, James found himself reading the newspaper the next morning sentimentally, with his arm round his wife's waist.
Another attempt had been made to discover the mystery of the cipher, and made in vain. James Bellbridge had his moments of good-humor, and was on those rare occasions easily amused. He eyed the child with condescending curiosity. "Looks half starved," he said as if he were considering the case of a stray cat. "Hollo, there! Buy a bit of bread."
I want to know if you have heard anything lately of James Bellbridge?" The landlord was a popular person in his own circle not accustomed to restrain himself when he saw his way to a joke. "Here's constancy!" he said. "She's sweet on James, after having jilted him twelve years ago!" Mrs. Westerfield replied with dignity. "I am accustomed to be treated respectfully," she replied.
Bellbridge is under suspicion of having caused the death of his wife in a fit of delirium tremens. The unfortunate woman had been married, for the first time, to one of the English aristocracy the Honorable Roderick Westerfield whose trial for casting away a ship under his command excited considerable interest in London some years since.
In a few minutes the hiding-place was laid bare. They looked into it. They looked at each other. There was the empty hole, telling its own story. The diamonds were gone. The Mother. Mrs. Bellbridge eyed her husband, prepared for a furious outbreak of rage. He stood silent, staring stupidly straight before him. The shock that had fallen on his dull brain had stunned it.
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