“This Croshar—­or whatever his name is,—­seems to be a ’strordinary feller,” observed Grady, relighting his cigar.

“He is,” agreed M. Pigot, quietly; “a most extraordinary man.  But even he is not infallible; for, since the memoir made no mention of the other secret drawer—­the one in which Madame la Duchesse concealed her love letters—­Crochard knew nothing of it.  It was that fact which defeated his combinations—­a pure accident which he could not foresee.  And now, gentlemen, it shall be my pleasure to display before you some very beautiful brilliants.”

Not until that instant had I thought of what the drawer contained; I had been too fascinated by the poisoned fangs and by the story told so quietly but so effectively by the French detective; but now I perceived that the drawer was filled with little rolls of cotton, which had been pressed into it quite tightly.

M. Pigot removed the first of these, unrolled it and spread it out upon the desk, and instantly we caught the glitter of diamonds —­diamonds so large, so brilliant, so faultlessly white that I drew a deep breath of admiration.  Even M. Pigot, evidently as he prided himself upon his imperturbability, could not look upon those gems wholly unmoved; a slow colour crept into his cheeks as he gazed down at them, and he picked up one or two of the larger ones to admire them more closely.  Then he unfolded roll after roll, stopping from time to time for a look at the larger brilliants.

“These are from the famous necklace which the Grand Duke inherited from his grandmother,” he said, calling our attention to a little pile of marvellous gems in one of the last packets.  “Crochard, of course, removed them from their settings—­that was inevitable.  He could melt down the settings and sell the gold; but not one of these brilliants would be marketable in Europe for many years.  Each of them is a marked gem.  Here in America, your police regulations are not so complete; but I fancy that, even here, he would have had difficulty in marketing this one,” and he unfolded the last packet, and held up to the light a rose-diamond which seemed to me as large as a walnut, and a-glow with lovely colour.

“Perhaps you have stopped to admire the Mazarin diamond in the galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre,” said M. Pigot.  “There is always a crowd about that case, and a special attendant is installed there to guard it, for it contains some articles of great value.  But the Mazarin is not one of them; for it is not a diamond at all; it is paste—­a paste facsimile of which this is the original.  Oh, it is all quite honest,” he added, as Grady snorted derisively.  “Some years ago, the directors of the Louvre needed a fund for the purchase of new paintings; needed also to clean and restore the old ones.  They decided that it was folly to keep three millions of francs imprisoned in a single gem, when their Michael Angelos and da Vincis and Murillos were encrusted with dirt