The Black Opal, Katharine Susannah Prichard [i have read the book a hundred times txt] 📗

a mild caress when they rested on a woman; it was not in the least offensive, but carried challenge and appeal⁠—a suggestion of sympathy. He had a thousand little courtesies for women, the deference which comes naturally to “a man of the world” for a member of “the fair sex.” Mrs. Newton was always flattered and delighted after a talk with him. He asked her advice about opals he had bought or was going to buy, and, although he did not make use of it very often, she was always pleased by his manner of asking. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Archie Cross both confessed to a partiality for Mr. Armitage, and even Mrs. Watty agreed that he was “a real nice man”; and when he was in the township Mrs. Henty and one of the girls usually drove over from the station and took him back to Warria to stay a day or two before he went back to Sydney on his return journey to New York.

Armitage was very keen to know whether there had been any sensational finds on the Ridge during the year, and all about them. He wanted to know who had been getting good stuff, and said that he had bought Jun’s stones in Sydney. The men exclaimed at that.

“I was surprised to hear,” John Armitage said, “what happened to the other parcel. You don’t mean to say you think Charley Heathfield⁠—?”

“We ain’t tried him yet,” Watty remarked cautiously, “but the evidence is all against him.”

Rouminof thrust himself forward, eager to tell his story. Realising the proud position he might have been in this night with the opal-buyer if he had had his opals, tears gathered in his eyes as he went over it all again.

Armitage listened intently.

“Well, of all the rotten luck!” he exclaimed, when Paul had finished. “Have another whisky, Rouminof? But what I can’t make out,” he added, “is why, if he had the stones, Charley didn’t come to me with them.⁠ ⁠… I didn’t buy anything but Jun’s stuff before I came up here⁠ ⁠… and he just said it was half the find he was showing me. Nice bit of pattern in that big black piece, eh? If Charley had the stones, you’d think he’d ’ve come along to me, or got Jun, or somebody to come along for him.⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t know about that.” George Woods felt for his reasons. “He wouldn’t want you⁠—or anybody else to know he’d got them.”

“That’s right,” Watty agreed.

“He’s got them all right,” Ted Cross declared. “You see, I seen him taking Rummy home that night⁠—and he cleared out next morning.”

“I guess you boys know best.” John Armitage sipped his whisky thoughtfully. “But I’m mad to get the rest of the stones. Tell you the truth, the old man hasn’t been too pleased with my buying lately⁠ ⁠… and it would put him in no end of a good humour if I could take home with me another packet of gems like the one I got from Jun. Jun knew I was keen to get the stones⁠ ⁠… and I can’t help thinking⁠ ⁠… if he knew they were about, he’d put me in the way of getting them⁠ ⁠… or them in my way⁠—somehow. You don’t think⁠ ⁠… anybody else could have been on the job, and⁠ ⁠… put it over on Charley, say.⁠ ⁠…”

His eyes went over the faces of the men lounging against the bar, or standing in groups about him. Michael was lifting his glass to drink, and, for the fraction of a second the opal-buyer’s glance wavered on his face before it passed on.

“Not likely,” George Woods said dryly.

Recognising the disfavour his suggestion raised, Armitage brushed it aside.

“I don’t think so, of course,” he said.

And although he did not speak to him, or even look at him closely again, John Armitage was thinking all the evening of the quiver, slight as the tremor of a moth’s wing, on Michael’s face, when that inquiry had been thrown out.

XI

Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more of Dawe Armitage’s zest for the business; and, every time they met, Ridge men found him shrewder, keener. His manner was genial and easygoing with them; but there was a steel band in him somewhere, they were sure.

The old man had been bluff, and as hard as nails; but they understood him better than his son. John Armitage, they knew, was only perfunctorily interested opal-buying at first; he had gone into it to please the old man, but gradually the thing had taken hold of him. He was not yet, however, anything like as good a judge of opal, and his last buying on the Ridge had displeased his father considerably. John Armitage had bought several parcels of good-looking opal; but one stone, which had cost £50 in the rough, was not worth £5 when it was cut. A grain of sand, Dawe Armitage swore he could have seen a mile away, went through it, and it cracked on the wheel. A couple of parcels had brought double what had been paid for them; but several stones John had given a good price for were not worth half the amount, his father had said.

George Woods and Watty took John Armitage a couple of fine knobbies during the morning, and the Crosses had shown him a parcel containing two good green and blue stones with rippled lights; but they had more on the parcel than Armitage felt inclined to pay, remembering the stormy scene there had been with the old man over that last stone from Crosses’ mine which had cracked in the cutter’s hands. Towards the end of the day Mr. Armitage came to the conclusion, having gone over the stones the men brought him, and having bought all he fancied, that there was very little black opal of first quality about. He was meditating the fact, leaning back in his chair in the sitting-room Newton had reserved