which
corner of it lay the concentrated colouring matter. His clerk wrote all
these particulars down and the parcel was then divided into five or
more parts and distributed among as many lapidaries, some in London,
some in Paris, some in the French Jura. When they came back faceted he
could thus check up pretty well on every stone. If the returns from one
or the other of his lapidaries proved repeatedly and startlingly
inadequate, he withdrew his custom.
On
one occasion he gave out a stone from which he had reason to expect a
fine finished specimen, but it was returned apparently a failure of no
great quality. He suspected the lapidary, and without telling me why,
he instructed me to find him a ruby—the gem was a ruby— of
approximately the size and quality he had expected from his own rough
stone. He suggested that one of the lapidaries might have such a stone;
he mentioned the suspected lapidary by name. I was not to ask
point-blank about the required stone, but to make the inquiry vague and
not to disclose that it was wanted for a dealer.
I executed the commission and brought back a fine ruby.
"This
is my stone," said Roeder as soon as he saw it. According to custom,
since I would not leave it with him, he sealed it up and returned it to
me. A few hours later the lapidary sent for me and asked me to deliver
the stone to Roeder, who had himself settled the account.
How
it was settled I learned from Roeder. He had charged the lapidary
outright with theft, and when the latter had denied it angrily and
threatened legal proceedings, Roeder said calmly: "You can take what
action you
