"Every Burglar in London Was Asking for His Address"

"The Great Green Diamond."
By Gilbert Floyd (1871-1935).
First appearance: The Harmsworth Monthly Pictorial Magazine, March 1899.
Short short story (5 pages, 5 illos).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).
(Note: Use the "Full Screen" function for better viewing.)

"The subsequent adventures of the great Battersby diamond may yet be traced halfway round the world, in the series of modest headstones which mark the last resting-places of its various lessees—for the jewel brought luck to no man, and people said that to possess it was to court a sudden and painful death."

A hot rock indeed, as dangerous to its possessor as the Blue Carbuncle of recent memory; however, Battersby, the present owner of the diamond ("the eighth wonder of the world"—the stone, not Battersby), evidently likes to live dangerously and remains, to all appearances, unfazed by the diamond's dire reputation—until that heart-stopping moment when it disappears, precipitating a crisis that could almost certainly spell the end of a beautiful friendship* . . .

Resources:
- FictionMags informs us that Gilbert Gover Floyd used two other noms de plume; as Duncan Storm he was a regular contributor of juvenile adventure tales to The Boys' Friend for over a decade, but as Julia Storm had just one story published in Schoolgirls’ Own.

- The story, "Beating the Lights," dealt with a stone of a different hue (HERE).

* . . . which, as you probably know, is spelled t-h-e e-n-d o-f a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l f-r-i-e-n-d-s-h-i-p.
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