The Blood-red Cross

In the month of November in the year 1899 I found myself a guest in the
house of one of my oldest friends--George Rowland. His beautiful place in
Yorkshire was an ideal holiday resort. It went by the name of Rowland's
Folly, and had been built on the site of a former dwelling in the reign
of the first George. The house was now replete with every modern luxury.
It, however, very nearly cost its first owner, if not the whole of his
fortune, yet the most precious heirloom of the family. This was a pearl
necklace of almost fabulous value. It had been secured as booty by a
certain Geoffrey Rowland at the time of the Battle of Agincourt, had
originally been the property of one of the Dukes of Genoa, and had even
for a short time been in the keeping of the Pope. From the moment that
Geoffrey Rowland took possession of the necklace there had been several
attempts made to deprive him of it. Sword, fire, water, poison, had all
been used, but ineffectually. The necklace with its eighty pearls,
smooth, symmetrical, pear-shaped, of a translucent white colour and with
a subdued iridescent sheen, was still in the possession of the family,
and was likely to remain there, as George Rowland told me, until the end
of time. Each bride wore the necklace on her wedding-day, after which it
was put into the strong-room and, as a rule, never seen again until the
next bridal occasion. The pearls were roughly estimated as worth from two
to three thousand pounds each, but the historical value of the necklace
put the price almost beyond the dreams of avarice.

It was reported that in the autumn of that same year an American
millionaire had offered to buy it from the family at their own price, but
as no terms would be listened to the negotiations fell through.