wife, so frequently invited the band leader to his table between items for a glass of wine.
Whether
the lady ever met her gypsy clandestinely must be left to your
imagination as it was left to mine. There is nothing against meeting
and talking together in the Bois in the Code Napoleon. But somehow they
must have arrived at an understanding, for one day Madame "X"
decamped with her lover, taking all her jewels and leaving all her
children, of whom she had four, to the stricken husband. The affair
was a nine days' wonder and was then forgotten. But one man, at any
rate, never seemed to get over it. I refer not to Monsieur "X", but to
Herr Poldar, who never tired of bewailing the disappearance of the gems
on which nightly he had feasted his eyes. He would sit at his table at
the Grand Café, head in hands and groaning, as though he had sustained
a personal loss. In particular did he bewail the magnificent turquoise
earrings, until the story became stale and Herr Poldar's obsession no
longer amused me.
Seventeen
years went by. I had changed my residence many times since those Paris
days. I was now established precariously as a dealer in Hatton Garden,
where in all weathers London's gem merchants congregate on the kerb and
in the gutter, talking over little white parcels that might contain
hundreds of pounds' worth of stones or a five-shilling lot of cultured
pearls.
I
was broke and did not know where my rent was coming from. In addition
I had a family which needed at least three square meals a day, and
perhaps that was the stimulus that one day made me turn up at my
little third-floor
