The O'Shaughnessy Diamonds

by William M. Cooke

ON the night of the 1st of June, 187—, the safe of Vanderkill & Brown, tea-brokers, of New York City, of which firm I was the senior partner, was broken open and robbed of diamonds valued at sixty thousand dollars and of five hundred dollars in money.

How jewels of such worth came to be left in so unlikely a place may need to be explained; and this I will first do.

Late in the afternoon of the day before, I was sitting alone in our private office. In the outer office, into which a door opened, our two boys, John and Edward, were at work,—one doing up express packages of samples, the other washing teacups; and our assistant buyer, Mr. Jones, was arranging sample cans on the racks. There was no one else in the office.

I had been writing letters for the Western mail, and was just signing the last one, when I heard some one outside asking for me or Mr. Brown, and one of our old customers, a man named O’Shaughnessy, of Chicago, came into the room. I had known him well a few years before, when he was at the head of a large grocery-house; but since then he had been operating heavily in grain, was said to have grown very rich, and seldom visited New York: so I was somewhat… Read More