locked it, while he bowed the Marquis down.  Returning immediately, the solicitor took the flat box and drove to the jeweller’s.  He found the latter so crowded with customers, it being the fashionable hour, as to be unable to attend to him; he, however, took the solicitor into his inner room, a dark fire-proof place, and there quickly deposited the box within a safe, which stood inside another, like a Japanese puzzle, and the solicitor, seeing the doors double-locked and secured, departed; the other promising to attend to the matter on the morrow.

Early the next morning, the jeweller entered his dark room, and proceeded to unlock the safe.  This being concluded, and the inner one also thrown open, he found the box in a last and entirely, as he had always believed, secret compartment.  Anxious to see this wonder, this Eye of Morning, and Heart of Day, he eagerly loosened the band and unclosed the box.  It was empty.  There was no chain there; the diamond was missing.  The sweat streamed from his forehead, his clothes were saturated, he believed himself the victim of a delusion.  Calling an assistant, every article and nook in the dark room was examined.  At last, in an extremity of despair, he sent for the solicitor, who arrived in a breath.  The jeweller’s alarm hardly equalled that of the other.  In his sudden dismay, he at first forgot the circumstances and dates relating to the affair; afterward was doubtful.  The Marquis of G. was summoned, the police called in, the jeweller given into custody.  Every breath the solicitor continued to draw only built up his ruin.  He swallowed laudanum, but, by making it an overdose, frustrated his own design.  He was assured, on his recovery, that no suspicion attached to him.  The jeweller now asseverated that the diamond had never been given to him; but though this was strictly true, the jeweller had, nevertheless, committed perjury.  Of course, whoever had the stone would not attempt to dispose of it at present, and, though communications were opened with the general European police, there was very little to work upon.  But by means of this last step the former possessors became aware of its loss, and I make no doubt had their agents abroad immediately.

Meanwhile, the case hung here, complicated and tantalizing, when one morning I woke in London.  No sooner had G. heard of my arrival than he called, and, relating the affair, requested my assistance.  I confess myself to have been interested,—­foolishly so, I thought afterward; but we all have our weaknesses, and diamonds were mine.  In company with the Marquis, I waited upon the solicitor, who entered into the few details minutely, calling frequently upon Ulster, a young fresh-looking man, for corroboration.  We then drove to the jeweller’s new quarters, took him, under charge of the officers, to his place of business, where he nervously showed me every point that could bear upon the subject, and ended by exclaiming, that he was ruined, and all for a stone he had never