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Updated: June 1, 2025
Old Bond Street presented a gloomy and deserted prospect to Chief Inspector Kerry as he turned out of Piccadilly and swung along toward the premises of Kazmah. He glanced at the names on some of the shop windows as he passed, and wondered if the furriers, jewelers and other merchants dealing in costly wares properly appreciated the services of the Metropolitan Police Force.
Jewelers are governed generally by sight, which they believe to be infallible, whilst hardness and specific gravity are the only sure tests. Artificial gems rivaling in beauty of color the most brilliant and delicately tinted of the productions of Nature are now made at Paris and in other European cities.
Some one has said that the Moguls designed like giants and finished like jewelers, and that epigram is emphasized in the Taj Mahal. Any portion of it, any feature, if taken individually, would be enough to immortalize the architect, for every part is equally perfect, equally chaste, equally beautiful. I shall not attempt to describe it. You can find descriptions by great pens in many books.
For the stranger who does at least a part of his sight-seeing after a rational and orderly fashion, there are pictures that will live in the memory always: the Madeleine, with the flower market just alongside; the green and gold woods of the Bois de Boulogne; the grandstand of the racecourse at Longchamp on a fair afternoon in the autumn; the Opera at night; the promenade of the Champs-Elysees on a Sunday morning after church; the Gardens of the Tuileries; the wonderful circling plaza of the Place Vendome, where one may spend a happy hour if the maniacal taxi-drivers deign to spare one's life for so unaccountably long a period; the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, with their exquisite shops, where every other shop is a jeweler's shop and every jeweler's shop is just like every other jeweler's shop which fact ceases to cause wonder when one learns that, with a few notable exceptions, all these shops carry their wares on commission from the stocks of the same manufacturing jewelers; the old Ile de la Cite, with the second-hand bookstalls stretching along the quay, and the Seine placidly meandering between its man-made, man-ruled banks.
By his acquaintance among the jewelers, he came to know that the fruit which he had gathered when he took the lamp were, instead of colored glass, stones of inestimable value; but he had the prudence not to mention this to any one, not even to his mother.
He saw, at a glance, that the box bore the imprint of one of the Gridley jewelers. "I can guess!" cried Dick. "I know what's in the box!" "Suppose you made a wrong guess?" laughed his mother teasingly. "Better open it and make sure." Dick picked up the box with trembling fingers. "Mighty light, whatever it is," he murmured. Then he took off the cover. "What's this?" choked Dick. "O-o-o-h!"
It looks so; but no, he selects a splendid, brilliant solitaire, for which he pays eight hundred dollars out of a plethoric purse, and also a finger-ring, diamond too, for two hundred and fifty dollars. The jewelers are polite, as the bankers were. He must be a large cotton-planter, one of a class with whom a fondness for jewels serves as a means of dozing away life in a kind of crystallization.
The late Sir Richard Wallace, than whom no one possessed a more profound knowledge of the masterpieces of the painters, goldsmiths, jewelers and potters of bygone centuries, was wont to declare that Empress Frederick surpassed him as an expert, although, with unlimited wealth at his disposal, he had devoted more than half a century of his life to the collection of "chefs d'oeuvre" in all parts of the world.
Neither knew how much the other was prepared to spend on a wedding present, or what form it would take; so spies were employed by both sides to keep watch on the jewelry stores, and the jewelers of the district were bribed by each side to impart the desired information. At last Foley heard that Divver had purchased a set of silver knives, forks and spoons.
The unknown here again darted at Cropole one of his withering glances. "I really do not understand diamonds, monsieur, I assure you," cried he. "But the jewelers do: ask them," said the unknown. "Now I believe our accounts are settled, are they not, monsieur l'hote?" "Yes, monsieur, and to my profound regret; for I fear I have offended monsieur."
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