by Edward Vivian.
Originally published in The Novel Magazine (C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.) vol.2 #1 (Oct 1905).
The tale of an audacious theft, and the smart way in which it was discovered.
The curator examined it carefully through his pince-nez and a glass. It was most certainly genuine; undoubtedly the finest specimen he had ever seen. Not a single crack or scratch was discernible on its magnificently marked surface; it was superb, flawless.
Floyd Appleton stared at the egg in his hand in half stupefaction. On other occasions he had come across many a little bargain; they fall at some time or another to the happy lot of most collectors, but this was something extraordinary and unique.
The egg in his hand was pointed in shape, over five inches long, a delicate buff in colour, and now that the curator had cleaned half a century's thick grime from off it, seen to be richly marked at its larger end with blotchings of dark chocolate brown.
"Whew!" ejaculated Appleton, emitting a long whistle.
He turned the egg shell over and weighed it in his hand.
"It's a genuine specimen." He spoke aloud, the better to absolutely reassure himself of the fact he announced. "It's a real great auk's egg, right enough. Perfect, too, and the finest I've ever seen. This is a little gold mine."
He took the egg and his callipers with him to the deserted library and reached down a long-unused volume. Many great auk's eggs were pictured there in the most handsome of plates, but none was comparable with the egg he held so carefully.
"It's better than Mr. Rigby-Fraser's or Baron Boileau's egg that sold for 310 guineas last year," said Appleton to himself, "and I only get seventy pounds a year for this wretched curatorship. Bah! I wish I'd bought that batch instead of their being given to this museum by some lazy executor who wanted to get rid of the things."
He stood reflectively eyeing that forlorn and melancholy relic of a long extinct bird. Had he been a born ornithologist he, by this time, must surely have marked in his mind every blotch that blurred it.
"There were seven-and-forty eggs in the basket altogether—one wouldn't be much missed; only one. But then the Committee know the number and I shall have to account for them. Shall I break one? No; that would be a reflection on my carefulness. I must replace it. No one knew what the eggs were when they came here; only I know now; why should I throw away my chances?"
Appleton was still uneasy; though he was unscrupulous, he was not yet hardened to the act he contemplated. He sought excuses to alleviate his moral qualms.
"The Ornithological Society doesn't want another of these eggs; they have one of them—a perfect one, too—in their museum now. I found this one, too, and that gives me some right. If it hadn't been for me they might never have known it was a great auk's egg—never. It was only through my care. I can put another egg just as large, and not one of the Committee or the Fellows or anybody else will ever know a word about it. They say exchange is no robbery unless you take two for one, and I shouldn't be doing that."
He still turned the egg over doubtfully, almost wishing for a moment that the dreadful thing would slip from his fingers and smash into a thousand fragments on the parqueterie. Such a contingency as that would release him from committing the actual crime, though he would remain unabsolved of guilt.
"And they don't half pay me for my work," he reflected, "let alone the nuisance of the Fellows asking questions. They've screwed me down to a beggarly seventy pounds a year." It was singular what a strange ponderosity this argument had in comparison with the ones that preceded it. To take that egg was actually beginning to seem quite a duty to him.
"I must get another to replace it," he continued mentally. "That albatross egg I have at home won't do. There are quite enough albatross duplicates in the batch already; too many might arouse suspicion. And penguins', too. They are nearly all sea-birds' eggs; what a lucky thing it is they are all much of a size; with the dirt on them they all looked nearly alike. What about sea eagles? There, I must have a look at the dealers'—something large and cheap is what I want.
"I'll lock them all up now; I can keep the whole thing quiet and change the eggs at my leisure. I should be a fool not to do it; such a splendid opportunity. One never gets two such chances."
The fortunes of Floyd Appleton were at a low ebb. He had lost position after position by a knack of offending his chiefs till this paltry curatorship alone remained to him. He was quite an average man, not perhaps very scrupulous at bottom, but still one who had never yet stooped to a dishonourable action. Weak-willed and a trifle vain, he had emulated the expenditure of richer men, and with an income that consisted of a few stray earnings and a meagre salary found himself now saddled with a burden of numerous and pressing debts.
Now came this opportunity, this temptation and ignoble fall. Out of a basket of miscellaneous and grime-incrusted egg shells—like most of the belongings of their late owner, left forgotten and neglected for years—came this golden chance. Here was an egg, saleable for at least three hundred pounds, to his hand for the taking.
It was far from being a fortune, yet its possession would enable him to free himself from his more serious embarrassments. And not a soul save he himself need ever know of it.
The donor of the eggs was ignorant of their species, the museum committee had passed them on for classification to him as the curator; absolutely nothing but his own moral sense seemed to stand in the way of his appropriating this ovate fragment of lime, vainly destined for the propagation of an uncouth race by a century-dead bird. But the moral sense of Floyd Appleton, like that of many a better man, was not calculated to bear a strain of three hundred pounds.
The evening of the day of his discovery found Appleton in St. George's Street, East—that old thoroughfare which achieved an ugly and lasting reputation under the less aristocratic name of Ratcliff Highway. He had sometimes dealt at an unsavoury establishment whose proprietor was an astute little Jew, from or to whom, at a price, you might buy or sell any commodity under Heaven. The curator had before now bartered with him, buying curios when his fortunes prospered, selling to him as they had declined, though it would have been a very clever man who could have driven a good bargain with Isaac Eppstein.
"Here now," said the old curio dealer, "is a piece of rare mica, or, here, two skulls of Roman soldiers dug out at Pompeii. You have not seen these: They are a wonderful bargain."
The old rogue bought them from a grave digger for four shillings a dozen, and Eppstein the younger had the day before in the back premises finished giving them their ageing and their coating of dust.
"No! They are not in my line."
"Ah! you want birds and shells, I know. What of this golden eagle, now! It is very cheap."
"No, let me look at your eggs—penguins' if you have any."
"Here is a beautiful lot—beautiful!"
"What is the price of that one?" asked Appleton. "The one that looks like a wild swan's."
"Oh ! very cheap that is."
"Well, what is it?" Appleton took out some money.
The dealer put it at an exorbitant figure, which, to his great amazement, the curator paid without the least demur. As Appleton bore off the egg the Jew looked after him with aggrieved chagrin.
"What a fool I am. Wish I had asked him double. Wonder now what he wants so much with that egg that he's willing to pay for it three times what it's worth? What a fool I was not to ask him more."
Appleton changed the eggs without the least difficulty. From not a single quarter did there blow the slightest breath of suspicion against the esteemed curator. The great auk's egg was safely packed in cotton wool in Appleton's rooms; the theft was undiscovered, with every likelihood of its remaining so, and Floyd Appleton saw things now in a new and less pleasing light.
The curator was in an uncomfortable quandary. To get the egg had been easy enough; to dispose of it safely was another and more perplexing matter; but an egg which has to be kept continually in secret under lock and key is apt to be a white elephant to any man.
Floyd Appleton could not offer his spoil for sale unless he could in some way account for its possession. A curio buyer is, of course, usually a curious person, and the man who will give three hundred guineas for an egg is inclined to be inquisitive as to whence it came.
Appleton was not an inventive man; he could think of nothing more plausible than the story that he had purchased an egg from Eppstein as a wild swan's which, on examination, proved to be a great auk's. It was weak, but it was simple, and the curator thought the story might serve as well as another.
He told no one of the treasure for six weeks; he would have kept the egg a secret for much longer than that had not the harassing of an importunate creditor forced his hand. When he made known his find, telling with ingenuous air the deliciously simple story of how he came by it, there were several days of newspaper excitement over it, and the exhibition of so perfect a specimen caused quite a flutter in minor scientific dovecotes.
Eppstein, the little Jew, was by fits incredulous and frantic. He vowed he would never believe that the egg sold to Appleton was a great auk's egg; he was confident that he had not so egregiously blundered.
"Isaac Eppstein never sold a great auk's egg yet," he would say. "Only to think of the fraud saying he bought one from me. Oh! the disgrace of it. People will be taking Isaac Eppstein for a fool. He sell a great auk's egg and not know it! What a disgrace it is!" he moaned dolorously. "And he going to sell that egg worth three hundred pounds. Ah! wherever he got it—and I'm certain he didn't get it off Isaac Eppstein–I'll take care by hook or by crook to make him pay me for it. I'll have my share out of him as sure as I live."
When it was announced that the egg was to be sold by auction he resolved that nothing should hinder him from being present. The auction rooms in King Street were more crowded than usual, so notable was the sale.
There was not much competition among American buyers—perhaps so fragile a film of tinted carbonate of lime is not rare enough or large enough for the money to suit American taste; even Ezra Pullbread, of Illinois, would not bid more than 1400 dollars for it. But European collectors were more alert, and there was exciting competition between the French Count de la Vieuville and Sir Neville Watkinson.
In twelve minutes the 300-guinea tide mark was reached, two minutes later a bid of 315 guineas broke the record of the egg of 1900, and still the figure crept ever up; the bids becoming gradually slower, more irregular, ceasing with applause when Lord Barncraig's agent closed with a bid of 340 guineas.
Floyd Appleton was saved; his star again ascendant.
Eppstein was acquainted with the buying agent, and experienced no difficulty in obtaining his permission to examine closely the renowned egg. The little Jew shook his head vehemently, spluttering with both wrath at the deception and exultation at his discovery of it.
"I've never seen this egg before—never," he mumbled. "Mr. Appleton seems to take me for a fool. He thinks, does he, that he can hoodwink old Isaac Eppstein like this."
"I thought Appleton bought the egg off you?" said Harvey, the agent.
"We'll see whether he did or not," said the curio-dealer ambiguously, jamming his soft hat down to his ears and scuttling off. He would see Appleton at once; determined to extort from him if possible by cajolery, or threat, a substantial share of the egg's purchase money.
Floyd Appleton had not been present at the auction; five weeks of mendacity had accustomed him to his story, but he never repeated the details if he could avoid it. Sale day he spent at the museum with much vain endeavour to concentrate his mind on work. A special messenger brought him news of the result from Covent Garden, and the exhilarated Appleton struck work and took a holiday. Five minutes after he had left the museum Eppstein arrived.
"The curator—Mr. Appleton, can I See him?" he inquired.
"Not here," said the attendant.
"Where is he?"
"Out," said the other, with brevity.
"When do you think I can see him?"
"Oh, to-morrow or the day after, I. expect. Don't think he'll be back any more to-day. But there, he might; he's forgotten his umbrella, and might be back for it in a few minutes: If he isn't he won't come back till to-morrow. You can wait for him, you know, if you like."
Eppstein waited a while, and went into the museum to pass the time. His thoughts naturally ran within the restricted limits the object of his errand imposed, and he longingly eyed, in its place of honour, the great auk's egg—Mr. Babbicombe's gift to the Ornithological Society in 1871.
There was a new case of eggs there, too, which, an inscription informed the curious, had been recently presented. Eppstein viewed its contents slowly with the eye of a connoisseur; carefully one by one till he came to the lowest row, and then what he saw, as the idea of it slowly irradiated his mind, dilated his eyes with astonishment.
There was the very egg, labelled "wild swan," that he had handled so many times. He was confident of it; there at its apex was still the little spot of marking ink that he himself had dropped; not for a moment could he have the least doubt.
Gradually, very gradually, light began to dawn upon him; Isaac Eppstein could put two and two together and make them four (or add them to five if circumstances required) as well as most men. He called the attendant and learnt from him details of the new batch of eggs; how and when they had come, and more particularly, and to the point, in whose charge they had been the whole time.
And then he chuckled and giggled and laughed before that case of eggs till the other would have bet the last halfpenny he possessed on the visitor's insanity. Mad or not, the shrewd old fellow had read the riddle of the eggs, and Appleton's secret was the secret of one no longer.
The next day, when Appleton came home to his apartments in the evening, he found a visitor in the easy chair smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper.
"Oh, Eppstein!" cried the curator in astonishment, "what brings you here?"
"Just a little business," said the intruder with modesty, not offering to vacate his vantage-point. Getting no reply, he repeated his pronouncement with increased emphasis.
"Yes, just a very little bit of business—about—that—egg.". He tongued the syllables slowly like luscious morsels, sat up suddenly, and eyed Appleton. His fierce eyes, accusative, mocking, triumphant, burning below the shaggy brows like brazier fires beneath penthouses, made the guilty curator blanch involuntarily.
"What have you got to say about that egg you have abstracted from the museum, eh!—the great auk's egg? Did you ask the committee's permission, eh?" The little Jew jumped up. "And that egg you got from me to change with it: Ah! I know. You needn't have thought you could keep your little secret so dark as all that."
Floyd Appleton seemed stricken dumb; he could only gasp. So certain had he been that his dishonest act was indiscoverable, he had lived in such a fool's paradise of confidence these latter days, that this bomb, hurled without warning with no uncertain aim, seemed to momentarily paralyse his mental energy. "I don't understand you," he said at length, feebly.
"Don't understand me?" repeated Eppstein mockingly. "You understand me right enough; perfectly. What are you going to do about it, eh?"
"Get out of my room, you scoundrel!" cried Appleton, recovering himself.
"Not I," said the other decisively.
"If you do not go at once I will send for the police," said the curator desperately.
"Do so, by all means," said the little Jew, with bravado. "But I think sending for police is part of my share in this little affair. And what would your committee say about the egg you stole—their egg, I should say—and the Ornithological Society, and your scientific friends, and your rich relations, if you have any, if you sent me to gaol? You couldn't hush it up, you know; I'd take good care of that. You would be a ruined man."
Appleton knew it. Not even the voluble curio-dealer knew so well as he what calamitous consequences such an accusation, even if unproved, would entail. His career, which, if lacking distinction, had been up to the present honourable, would inevitably be blighted past hope. He was an amateur in dishonesty, and the mask of effrontery he tried to assume was pierced at the first assault by the other's keen thrusts.
"There are no proofs."
"Direct proofs are quite needless," said Eppstein; "but the array of facts I can bring forward, let alone the mere accusation, would amply satisfy anyone. Are you not satisfied with them?"
"Your object is to blackmail me, I suppose?" Appleton said meekly.
"Nothing of the kind, dear Mr. Appleton. I am very sorry you should so misjudge me." Eppstein said it unctuously, and, seeming to relish it, gave a repetition. "I have come merely to get my share of the purchase money. If the egg was obtained from me, as you say, then the money is mine by right if not by law. But the great auk's egg was not obtained from me; it was stolen from the museum, and who stole it, eh? You did; and here I am come for my share of the proceeds. My rightful share as accessory after the fact."
"Well, how much do you want?" said Appleton, succumbing weakly. "Mind, I do not admit that I took the egg, but I naturally wish to hush up such an accusation whether it be true or false. There, I will pay no hush money; it would not guarantee your silence."
"One may easily see you are unused to these little transactions," said Eppstein, grinning, "I just told you how to avoid all fear of that. Give me a share of the money and I shall be an accessory, with just as much interest in keeping it all quiet as you have. Isaac Eppstein isn't a mean man; no, not at all. When he takes a share of the plunder he is willing to take his share of the risk, and the receiver is as bad as the thief, you know."
"Let's get the wretched business over," said Appleton; "what are your demands!"
"Three hundred pounds in cash."
"You extortionate villain!"
"If I cared to retort, I might say "thief," said the other imperturbably.
"But that is nearly all I shall get for the egg after expenses are paid."
"So I suppose," said Eppstein unmoved.
"Half Take half " intreated the unhappy Appleton. "I will give you half."
"Not a farthing less than three hundred pounds will I take," said Eppstein with decision, bluffing with exquisite judgment. "Either you give me three hundred pounds here and now, or to-morrow morning a neat little account of your little escapade, with details to follow, shall appear in every newspaper in London. Come, I thought you were in a hurry; not that I am in any haste."
"I haven't such an amount here," said Appleton. "The purchase-money was only placed to my account at the bank this afternoon."
"Oh, a cheque will do; but play no tricks."
"What shall I say to my creditors?"
"Anything you like. Why you see me here now is because I am a great auk that likes to push his beak into things before the birds of prey come round with their bills. I thought there might be a creditor or two."
"Take two hundred, and go," said the curator, fingering his cheque-book.
"Three," said the Jew, his eyes a-glitter with unrelenting avarice.
Appleton filled in the cheque with a groan. Paths of knavery were not so delectable as he had fondly imagined.
"You can believe me as a gentleman," said the wily old curio-dealer, jamming on his hat as he spoke. "You will never hear great auks or their eggs mentioned by me. It shall all be dark with me. If at any time you require anything in my line, I shall be happy to oblige. A good deal is always a satisfaction and a mutual pleasure."
"Get out of the house," cried Appleton, with insulted indignation, and he heard Eppstein laughing softly all the while that he was groping his way down the dark stairs.
The next morning outside a bank a keen eyed little Jew waited with impatience for the doors to be unclosed.