Historic diamond of Herzoslovakia

The Historic diamond of Herzoslovakia is the concealed object sought at Chimneys, and its recovery turns an apparent bibliographical puzzle into a search of the garden. Anthony Cade draws on Count Stylptitch’s memoirs to interpret a cipher whose references to Richmond and numbers point first toward a book in Lord Caterham’s library, then toward the red roses beyond the house. The jewel’s hiding place connects the investigation’s clues to the estate’s landscape, while its recovery closes the search for the object itself.

The Diamond and the Political Background

The memoirs that help disclose the hiding place belong to a politically consequential history. Count Stylptitch had lived in Paris after the assassination of King Nicholas IV. In Anthony’s account, the king’s marriage to Queen Varaga, whose origins as a Paris music-hall performer were concealed behind an invented aristocratic pedigree, helped fuel popular discontent. An uprising stormed the palace, killed the king and queen, and proclaimed a republic; Herzoslovakia remained a republic thereafter, despite subsequent political violence.

That history gives the memoirs a contemporary political charge. At Chimneys, George Lomax warns Lord Caterham that publishing them at a moment when Herzoslovakians wish to restore the monarchy could ruin the effort. The proposed restoration would offer the crown to Prince Michael, who had the support of the British government and was prepared to grant concessions to Isaacstein and Company in return for a loan of about a million pounds. The diamond’s hiding place is not itself explained as part of this political bargain, but the memoirs make the object’s pursuit unfold amid competing efforts to shape the kingdom’s future.

A Clue Hidden in the Memoirs

Anthony’s solution begins with a cipher message that mentions Richmond and numbers. He recalls a dinner described in Count Stylptitch’s memoirs at which guests wore badges representing flowers. The count’s badge, Anthony explains, was an exact duplicate of a curious device found in a cavity in a secret passage at Chimneys. The device represented a rose. Its repeated shapes—including buttons, the letter E, and knitting—had initially obscured that meaning; the rose gives Anthony a way to connect the cipher to the house and grounds.

Anthony first translates the numbers into a library search. The catalogue lists a book called The Life of the Earl of Richmond, and the rows of books suggest a possible system of shelves and volumes. He proposes that the sought object may lie in a dummy book or in a cavity behind a particular book. This explanation seems to turn the cipher into a practical route through the library, but it is not his genuine answer. Anthony later admits that the library theory was invented to trap the woman following the false lead.

From the Library to the Rose Garden

The actual interpretation returns to the rose emblem. When the significance of Count Stylptitch’s device dawns on Anthony on Monday afternoon, he goes straight to the rose garden. Mr Fish has independently reached the same idea. Their directions identify a specific point: with one’s back to the sundial, take seven paces forward, eight to the left, and three to the right. The destination is a group of bushes bearing bright red roses called Richmond.

The choice of that name completes the cipher’s misdirection and correction. Richmond initially appears as a reference to a volume in Lord Caterham’s library; in the true solution, it names the roses that mark the garden location. The house has already been ransacked in the search, yet no one has thought to dig there. Anthony therefore proposes a digging party for the following morning, shifting the investigation from shelves and concealed spaces indoors to the ground outside.

Recovery and Significance

The recovery is presented as a formal handover rather than an immediate display. At the excavation, Mr Fish brings out a small canvas package and gives it to Superintendent Battle, who in turn hands it to George Lomax. Lomax unwraps the package and cuts through the oilskin and further wrapping. He briefly holds an object on his palm, then quickly covers it again with cotton wool. The passage establishes the package and its guarded handling as the culmination of the search, without describing the diamond’s appearance in detail.

The route to the discovery also exposes the difference between a clue and a decoy. Anthony’s public library explanation is persuasive enough to draw attention toward a plausible hiding place, while his private interpretation of the rose and Richmond points to the garden. Mr Fish’s independent deduction confirms that the emblem can be read without relying solely on Anthony’s explanation. The diamond’s concealment has made the estate’s familiar features—its catalogue, secret passage, sundial, and rose bushes—part of a single puzzle; its recovery resolves that puzzle by making the garden, rather than the house, the final place to search.