in Leta’s big barouche, and Domenico’s dinners, as one to whom short commons were not unknown.  She had a hungry way of grabbing and grasping at everything she could—­the shillings she won at whist, the best fruit at dessert, the postage stamps in the library inkstand—­that was infinitely suggestive.  Sometimes I could have pitied her, she was so greedy, so spiteful, so friendless.  She always made me think of some wicked old pirate putting into a peaceful port to provision and repair his battered old hulk, obliged to live on friendly terms with the natives, but his piratical old nostrils asniff for plunder and his piratical old soul longing to be off marauding once more.  When would that be?  Not till the arrival in Paris of her distinguished American friends, of whom we heard a great deal.  “Charming people, the Bokums of Chicago, the American branch of the English Beauchamps, you know!” They seemed to be taking an unconscionable time to get there.  She would have insisted on being driven over to Northchurch to call at the palace, but that the bishop was understood to be holding confirmations at the other end of the diocese.

I was alone in the house one afternoon sitting by my window, toying with the key of my safe, and wondering whether I dare treat myself to a peep at my treasures, when a suspicious movement in the park below caught my attention.  A black figure certainly dodged from behind one tree to the next, and then into the shadow of the park paling instead of keeping to the footpath.  It looked queer.  I caught up my field glass and marked him at one point where he was bound to come into the open for a few steps.  He crossed the strip of turf with giant strides and got into cover again, but not quick enough to prevent me recognizing him.  It was—­great heavens!—­the bishop!  In a soft hat pulled over his forehead, with a long cloak and a big stick, he looked like a poacher.

Guided by some mysterious instinct I hurried to meet him.  I opened the conservatory door, and in he rushed like a hunted rabbit.  Without explanation I led him up the wide staircase to my room, where he dropped into a chair and wiped his face.

“You are astonished, Mr. Acton,” he panted.  “I will explain directly.  Thanks.”  He tossed off the glass of brandy I had poured out without waiting for the qualifying soda, and looked better.

“I am in serious trouble.  You can help me.  I’ve had a shock to-day—­a grievous shock.”  He stopped and tried to pull himself together.  “I must trust you implicitly, Mr. Acton, I have no choice.  Tell me what you think of this.”  He drew a case from his breast pocket and opened it.  “I promised you should see the Valdez sapphire.  Look there!”

The Valdez sapphire!  A great big shining lump of blue crystal—­flawless and of perfect color—­that was all.  I took it up, breathed on it, drew out my magnifier, looked at it in one light and another.  What was wrong with it?  I could not say.  Nine experts out of ten would undoubtedly have pronounced the stone genuine.  I, by virtue of some mysterious instinct that has hitherto always guided me aright, was the unlucky tenth.  I looked at the bishop.  His eyes met mine.  There was no need of spoken word between us.