Dialstone Lane, Part 1 by W.W. Jacobs

To keep such a romance to himself was beyond the powers of Mr. Chalk. / The captain had made no conditions as to secrecy, and he therefore / considered himself free to indulge in hints to his two greatest friends, / which caused those gentlemen to entertain some doubts as to his sanity. / Mr. Robert Stobell, whose work as a contractor had left a permanent and / unmistakable mark upon Binchester, became imbued with a hazy idea that / Mr. Chalk had invented a new process of making large diamonds. Mr. / Jasper Tredgold, on the other hand, arrived at the conclusion that a / highly respectable burglar was offering for some reason to share his loot / with him. A conversation between Messrs. Stobell and Tredgold in the / High Street only made matters more complicated.

"Chalk always was fond of making mysteries of things," complained Mr. / Tredgold.

Mr. Stobell, whose habit was taciturn and ruminative, fixed his dull / brown eyes on the ground and thought it over. "I believe it's all my eye / and Betty Martin," he said, at length, quoting a saying which had been / used in his family as an expression of disbelief since the time of his / great-grandmother.

"He comes in to see me when I'm hard at work and drops hints," pursued / his friend. "When I stop to pick'em up, out he goes. Yesterday he came / in and asked me what I thought of a man who wouldn't break his word for / half a million. Half a million, mind you! I just asked him who it was, / and out he went again. He pops in and out of my office like a figure on / a cuckoo-clock."

Mr. Stobell relapsed into thought again, but no gleam of expression / disturbed the lines of his heavy face; Mr. Tredgold, whose sharp, alert / features bred more confidence in his own clients than those of other / people, waited impatiently.

"He knows something that we don't," said Mr. Stobell, at last; "that's / what it is."

Mr. Tredgold, who was too used to his friend's mental processes to / quarrel with them, assented.

"He's coming round to smoke a pipe with me to-morrow night," he said, / briskly, as he turned to cross the road to his office. "You come too, / and we'll get it out of him. If Chalk can keep a secret he has altered, / that's all I can say."

His estimate of Mr. Chalk proved correct. With Mr. Tredgold acting as / cross-examining counsel and Mr. Stobell enacting the part of a partial / and overbearing judge, Mr. Chalk, after a display of fortitude which / surprised himself almost as much as it irritated his friends, parted with / his news and sat smiling with gratification at their growing excitement.

"Half a million, and he won't go for it? " ejaculated Mr. Tredgold. "The / man must be mad."

"No; he passed his word and he won't break it," said Mr. Chalk. "The / captain's word is his bond, and I honour him for it. I can quite / understand it."

Mr. Tredgold shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Mr. Stobell; that / gentleman, after due deliberation, gave an assenting nod.

"He can't get at it, that's the long and short of it," said Mr. Tredgold, / after a pause. "He had to leave it behind when he was rescued, or else / risk losing it by telling the men who rescued him about it, and he's had / no opportunity since. It wants money to take a ship out there and get / it, and he doesn't see his way quite clear. He'll have it fast enough / when he gets a chance. If not, why did he make that map?"

Mr. Chalk shook his head, and remarked mysteriously that the captain had / his reasons. Mr. Tredgold relapsed into silence, and for some time the / only sound audible came from a briar-pipe which Mr. Stobell ought to have / thrown away some years before.

"Have you given up that idea of a yachting cruise of yours, Chalk? " / demanded Mr. Tredgold, turning on him suddenly.

"No," was the reply. "I was talking about it to Captain Bowers only the / other day. That's how I got to hear of the treasure."

Mr. Tredgold started and gave a significant glance at Mr. Stobell. In / return he got a wink which that gentleman kept for moments of mental / confusion.

"What did the captain tell you for? " pursued Mr. Tredgold, returning to / Mr. Chalk. "He wanted you to make an offer. He hasn't got the money for / such an expedition; you have. The yarn about passing his word was so / that you shouldn't open your mouth too wide. You were to do the / persuading, and then he could make his own terms. Do you see? Why, it's / as plain as A B C."

"Plain as the alphabet," said Mr. Stobell, almost chidingly.

Mr. Chalk gasped and looked from one to the other.