As we sat together Muriel, a smart figure in a pale blue gown, poured tea for us and chatted more merrily, I thought, than ever before.  She seemed quick and nervous and yet full of happiness, as she should indeed have been, for Jack Durnford was one of the best fellows in the world, and his restoration to health little short of miraculous.

“Gordon,” he said to me with a sudden seriousness when tea had ended and we had placed down our cups.  “I want to tell you something—­something I’ve been longing always to tell you, and now I have got dear Muriel’s consent.  I want to tell you about her father and his friends.”

“And about Elma, too?” I said in quick eagerness.  “Yes, tell me everything.”

“No, not everything, for I don’t know it myself.  But what I know I will explain as briefly as I can, and leave you to form your own conclusions.  It is,” he went on, “a strange—­most amazing story.  When I myself became first cognizant of the mystery I was on board the flagship the Renown, under Admiral Sir John Fisher.  We were lying in Malta when there arrived the English yacht Iris, owned by Mr. Philip Leithcourt, and among those on board cruising for pleasure were Mr. Martin Woodroffe, Mr. Hylton Chater, and the owner’s wife and daughter Muriel.

“Muriel and I met first at a tennis-party, and afterwards frequently at various houses in Malta, for anyone who goes there and entertains is soon entertained in return.  A mutual attachment sprang up between Muriel and myself,” he said, placing his hand tenderly upon hers and smiling, “and we often met in secret and took long walks, until quite suddenly Leithcourt said that it was necessary to sail for Smyrna to pick up some friends who had been traveling in Palestine.  The night they sailed a great consternation was caused on the island by the news that the safe in the Admiral Superintendent’s office had been opened by expert safe-breakers, and certain most important secret documents stolen.”

“Well?” I asked, much interested.

“Again, two months later, when the villa of the Prince of Montevachi, at Palmero, was broken into and the whole of the famous jewels of the Princess stolen, it was a very strange fact that the Iris was at the moment in that port.  But it was not until the third occasion, when the yacht was at Villefranche, and our squadron being at Toulon I got four days’ leave to go along the Riviera, that my suspicions were aroused, for at the very hour when I was dining at the London House at Nice with Muriel and a schoolfellow of hers, Elma Heath—­who was spending the winter there with a lady who was Baron Oberg’s cousin—­that a great robbery was committed in one of the big hotels up at Cimiez, the wife of an American millionaire losing jewels valued at thirty thousand pounds.  Then the robberies, coincident with the visit of the yacht, aroused my strong suspicion.  I remarked the nature of those documents stolen from