At first Random was inclined to place the sentry under arrest for having failed so much in his duty as to allow anyone to approach so near the Fort; but, as he had already reprimanded the man, and, moreover, wished to keep the fact of the recovered jewel quiet, he simply dismissed him.  When alone, he sat down before the fire, wondering who could have dared so very greatly, and for what reason the emerald had been handed to him.  If it had been sent to Don Pedro, or even to Professor Braddock, it would have been much more reasonable.

It first occurred to him that Mrs. Jasher, out of gratitude for the way in which he had treated her, had sent him the jewel.  Remembering his former experience, he smelt the parcel, but could detect no sign of the famous Chinese scent which had proved a clue to the letter.  Of course the direction on the packet and the inscribed slip of paper were in feigned handwriting, so he could gather nothing from that.  Still, he did not think that Mrs. Jasher had sent the emerald.  She was desperately hard up, and if she had become possessed of the gem by murder—­presuming her to have been the woman who talked to Bolton through the window—­she assuredly would have sold it to supply her own needs.  Certainly, if guilty, she would still possess the other emerald, of equal value; but undoubtedly, had she risked her neck to gain a fortune, she would have kept the entire plunder which was likely to cost her so dear.  No; whomsoever it was who had repented at the eleventh hour, Mrs. Jasher was not the person.

Perhaps Widow Anne was the woman who had talked through the window, and who had restored the emerald.  But that was impossible, since Mrs. Bolton habitually took more liquor than was good for her, and would not have the nerve to deliver the jewel, much less commit the crime, the more especially as the victim was her own son.  Of course she might have found out Sidney’s scheme to run away with the jewels, and so would have claimed her share.  But if she had been in Pierside on that evening—­and her presence in Gartley had been sworn to by three or four cronies—­she would have guessed who had strangled her boy.  If so, not all the jewels in the world would have prevented her denouncing the criminal.  With all her faults—­and they were many—­Mrs. Bolton was a good mother, and looked upon Sidney as the pride and joy of her somewhat dissipated life.  Mrs. Bolton was certainly as innocent as Mrs. Jasher.

There remained Hervey.  Random laughed aloud when the name came into his puzzled head.  That buccaneer was the last person to surrender his plunder or to feel compunction in committing a crime.  Once the skipper got his grip on two jewels, worth endless money, he would never let them go—­not even one of them.  Arguing thus, it seemed that Hervey was out of the running, and Random could think of no one else.  In this dilemma he remembered that two heads were better than one, and, before going into dinner, he sent a note to Archie Hope, asking him to come to the Fort as speedily as possible.