the treasure-train by arthur b. reeve
while searching for content to put on the site, i stumbled across a story by arthur b. reeve. this
story features an individual by the name of jack mansfield. in the interests of saving space only a
portion has been reproduced here, however, the story in its entirety is available on project
gutenberg.
the treasure-train by arthur b. reeve
II
THE TRUTH DETECTOR
"You haven't heard--no one outside has heard--of the strange
illness and the robbery of my employer, Mr. Mansfield--'Diamond
Jack' Mansfield, you know."
Our visitor was a slight, very pretty, but extremely nervous girl,
who had given us a card bearing the name Miss Helen Grey.
"Illness--robbery?" repeated Kennedy, at once interested and
turning a quick glance at me.
I shrugged my shoulders in the negative. Neither the Star nor any
of the other papers had had a word about it.
"Why, what's the trouble?" he continued to Miss Grey.
"You see," she explained, hurrying on, "I'm Mr. Mansfield's
private secretary, and--oh, Professor Kennedy, I don't know, but
I'm afraid it is a case for a detective rather than a doctor." She
paused a moment and leaned forward nearer to us. "I think he has
been poisoned!"
The words themselves were startling enough without the evident
perturbation of the girl. Whatever one might think, there was no
doubt that she firmly believed what she professed to fear. More
than that, I fancied I detected a deeper feeling in her tone than
merely loyalty to her employer.
"Diamond Jack" Mansfield was known in Wall Street as a successful
promoter, on the White Way as an assiduous first-nighter, in the
sporting fraternity as a keen plunger. But of all his hobbies,
none had gained him more notoriety than his veritable passion for
collecting diamonds.
He came by his sobriquet honestly. I remembered once having seen
him, and he was, in fact, a walking De Beers mine. For his
personal adornment, more than a million dollars' worth of gems did
relay duty. He had scores of sets, every one of them fit for a
king of diamonds. It was a curious hobby for a great, strong man,
yet he was not alone in his love of and sheer affection for things
beautiful. Not love of display or desire to attract notice to
himself had prompted him to collect diamonds, but the mere
pleasure of owning them, of associating with them. It was a hobby.
It was not strange, therefore, to suspect that Mansfield might,
after all, have been the victim of some kind of attack. He went
about with perfect freedom, in spite of the knowledge that crooks
must have possessed about his hoard.
"What makes you think he has been poisoned?" asked Kennedy,
betraying no show of doubt that Miss Grey might be right.
"Oh, it's so strange, so sudden!" she murmured.
"But how do you think it could have happened?" he persisted.
"It must have been at the little supper-party he gave at his
apartment last night," she answered, thoughtfully, then added,
more slowly, "and yet, it was not until this morning, eight or ten
hours after the party, that he became ill." She shuddered.
"Paroxysms of nausea, followed by stupor and such terrible
prostration. His valet discovered him and sent for Doctor Murray--
and then for me."
"How about the robbery?" prompted Kennedy, as it became evident
that it was Mansfield's physical condition more than anything else
that was on Miss Grey's mind.
"Oh yes"--she recalled herself--"I suppose you know something of
his gems? Most people do." Kennedy nodded. "He usually keeps them
in a safe-deposit vault downtown, from which he will get whatever
set he feels like wearing. Last night it was the one he calls his
sporting-set that he wore, by far the finest. It cost over a
hundred thousand dollars, and is one of the most curious of all
the studies in personal adornment that he owns. All the stones are
of the purest blue-white and the set is entirely based on
platinum.
"But what makes it most remarkable is that it contains the famous
M-1273, as he calls it. The M stands for Mansfield, and the
figures represent the number of stones he had purchased up to the
time that he acquired this huge one."
the understated jack homepage
passion