“He deserves no better!” said Cleek, through his close-shut teeth.  “To a Russian—­a Russian!  As heaven hears me, but for his queen—­Well, let it pass.  Tell me, how did this Russian get the jewel, and when?”

“Oh, long ago, monsieur—­long ago; many months before King Alburtus died.”

“Was it his hand that gave it up?”

“No, monsieur.  He died without knowing of its loss, without suspecting that the stone in the royal parure is but a sham and an imitation,” replied the count.  “It all came of the youth, the recklessness, the folly of the crown prince.  Monsieur may have heard of his—­his many wild escapades—­his thoughtless acts, his—­his—­”

“Call them dissipations, Count, and give them their real name.  His acts as crown prince were a scandal and a disgrace.  To whom did he part with this gem—­a woman?”

“Monsieur, yes!  It was during the time he was stopping in Paris—­incognito to all but a trusted few.  He—­he met the woman there, became fascinated with her—­bound to her—­an abject slave to her.”

“A slave to a Russian?  Mauravania’s heir and—­a Russian?”

“Monsieur, he did not know that until afterward.  In a mad freak—­there was to be a masked ball—­he yielded to the lady’s persuasions to let her wear the famous Rainbow Pearl for that one night.  He journeyed back to Mauravania and abstracted it from among the royal jewels—­putting a mere imitation in its place so that it should not be missed until he could return the original.  Monsieur, he was never able to return it at any time, for, once she had got it, the Russian made away with it in some secret manner and refused to give it up.  Her price for returning it was his royal father’s consent to ennoble her, to receive her at the Mauravanian Court, and so to alter the constitution that it would be possible for her to become the crown prince’s wife.”

“The proposition of an idiot.  The thing could not possibly be done.”

“No, monsieur, it could not.  So the crown prince broke from her and bent all his energies upon the recovery of the pearl and the keeping of its loss a secret from the king and his people.  Bravos, footpads, burglars—­all manner of men—­were employed before he left Paris.  The woman’s house was broken into, the woman herself waylaid and searched, but nothing came of it—­no clue to the lost jewel could be found.”

“Why then did he not appeal to the police?”

“Monsieur, he—­he dared not.  In one of his moments of madness he—­she—­that is—­Oh, monsieur, remember his youth!  It appears that the woman had got him to put into writing something which, if made public, would cause the people of Mauravania to rise as one man and to do with him as wolves do with things that are thrown to them in their fury.”

“The dog!  Some treaty with a Russian, of course!” said Cleek indignantly.  “Oh, fickle Mauravania, how well you are punished for your treasonable choice!  Well, go on, Count.  What next?”