Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1893-09-01
AN AMERICAN in IT
The Great Hatton Garden Swindle, Writ.
ten for This Paper.
BY j. M. BARRIE.

full five feet-three boundary OF i'm
pressiveness, as he said to his wife
who had followed him.
Matilda Yane, if dew can coma anv
OF dere schwindling bricks over me. +
makes dem a breasant of all dew laws
dere fingers on. De quickness of de hand
will never keep pace init de rapiditv Of
dis child's eye-he wasn't built dat
vay!" '
And with these emphatic words. de-
llvered with a tap on the side of the
nose and a sagacious wink of the eve.
Mr.. Cornelius Vanderstroom executed
q dlgnihed waddle down the road in
the direction Of his train, while his
wife, turning round in the hall, when
her lord and master was out of SIGHT.
discovered and Immediately took DOS
session OF the dropped pocket-book.
CHAPTER II.
When the diamond merchant re-
turned from business to his suburban
home that night he was strangely
altered man. The starch and buckram
OF the mornings exit had vanished. A
imp, lnvertebrate exterior, combined
with a detected havior OF the visage,"
silently attested that, like Hamlet in
his af1iiction, he had that within him
which passeth show"
Mrs. VanderstrOOm, however, seemed
oblivious of the change. They had no
company at dinner, SO they sat down to
tete-a-tete repast, at which the lady
had to do all the talking, for poor Van
derstrOOm had evidently returned to
the monosyllabic period of primeval
speech. The music in the drawing
room was bereft of its customary
charms to Cornelius just as the last
cigar and might cap seemed destitute
OF fragrance and consolation. But, all
unmlndful of such matters, his wife
alternately ratified on the piano and
chartered through the evening, until
the st' We clock chimed half-past II,
and 1t was time to go to bed.
A married mans couch is the last
place in which he should attempt to
hide secret sorrow. VanderstrOOm
knew instinctively that it was all up
with him the moment he slid between
the sheets. For breathes there Ben
edict in bonnie England who would be
permitted to close his eyes and Danish
care by slumber without first impart-
ing the cause of his discomfort to his
wife? Although Mrs. Vanderstroom
knew well enough what was on her
husbands mind, it did not suit that
estimable lady's purpose to alleviate
his distress until she had proved to him
in practical manner that he was far
from the careful custodian of his own
property he invariably represented
himself to be. Moreover, she liked, in
common with the rest of her sex, to
have any superfluous money there
might be about in her own safe keep
ing, and now such chance as she had
never dreamed of in her widest dreams
presented itself. With it came the OPP
portunity to read her lord lesson, and
prove to him that he was not such a
cock-of-the-walk as he imagined, and
that henceforward, if there was any
growing to be done, it might just as
we'll be undertaken by the hen.
There was no sleep for Cornelius that
night until his bedroom had been
turned into a star chamber, with his
wife as grand inquisitor, and the bed
for the rack. Slowly, but surely, the
dreadful confession was wrung from
him. Humbly he had to disclose the
nature of the loss he firmly believed
! he had sustained-to abjectly own that
he had been robbed in broad daylight
| in his train. perchance-he, the astute,
clever Cornelius, robbed like a common
country pumpkin of his pocket-book,
containing 800 in Bank of England
notes, which must have been distracted
from his undercoat somewhere between
his home and Hatton Garden; for
when he reached his Office that morn
ing it was gone.
Mrs. Vanderstroom listened in kind
of ecstasy of female triumph to her
husbands agonized confession of male
| fallibility. Nor was it until she had
extracted from him VOW that he
would never carry such large sums
about with him again, and that he
would deliver the 1900 into her safe
keeping-should it ever be recovered,
which seemed hopeless, after all he
had told her at breakfast about limo.
cent holders of stolen Bank of England
notes"-and never ask for the money
back again, unless the demands OF bust.
ness rendered such a course absolutely
| imperative; it was only after these sol
emn promises had been drawn from the
unhappy Cornelius that his good lady
turned him in an instant from the most
miserable of mortals to the most joy
GUS of little men by showing him MS
pocket-book with the notes intact, as
she had found them in the hall that
! morning, reposing snugly and safely
under her pillow.
From that hour Mr.. Cornelius Van
derstroom's reputation for phenomena
cuteness in the detection OF crime, his
dissertations on rogues and roguery. al
we'll as the customary illusions to his
distinctive dexterity in the detection o.
"put up yobs, had to be confined to ms
city circle of admirers. But events
were ripening destined to shatter the
diamond merchants reputation fol
SHARPNESS as much abroad as at home
| CHAPTER III.
It was afternoon in Hatton Garden
Cornelius was summing his consequen
tial little rotundity on his office steps
with his heavily ringed fingers thrust