When the jeweller Boehmer made the necklace he asked a hundred and
sixty thousand pounds for it, but after years of disappointment he was
content to sell it to Cardinal de Rohan for sixty-four thousand
pounds, to be liquidated in three instalments, not one of which was
ever paid. This latter amount was probably somewhere near the value of
the five hundred and sixteen separate stones, one of which was of
tremendous size, a very monarch of diamonds, holding its court among
seventeen brilliants each as large as a filbert. This iridescent
concentration of wealth was, as one might say, placed in my care, and
I had to see to it that no harm came to the necklace or to its
prospective owner until they were safely across the boundaries of
France.
The four weeks previous to the thirteenth proved a busy and anxious
time for me. Thousands, most of whom were actuated by mere curiosity,
wished to view the diamonds. We were compelled to discriminate, and
sometimes discriminated against the wrong person, which caused
unpleasantness. Three distinct attempts were made to rob the safe, but
luckily these criminal efforts were frustrated, and so we came
unscathed to the eventful thirteenth of the month.
The sale was to begin at two o'clock, and on the morning of that day I
took the somewhat tyrannical precaution of having the more dangerous
of our own malefactors, and as many of the foreign thieves as I could
trump up charges against, laid by the heels, yet I knew very well it
was not these rascals I had most to fear, but the suave, well-groomed
gentlemen, amply supplied with unimpeachable credentials, stopping at
our fine hotels and living like princes.
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