The Datchet Diamonds

ak the train slowed into Preston Park. At the station Mr. Paxton saw that some one else got into t

his Gladstone in his hand, feeling in a sort of intellectual fog. He saw Mr. Lawrence--also carrying a Gladstone--get out of the next compartment. A tall, thin man, with high cheekbones, a heavy moustache, and a pronounced stoop, got out after him--evidently the German-American. Mr. Paxton allowed the pair to walk down the

ton, I b

onscious, on a sudden, of a wild impulse to k

ur drink, M

s certainly not going to drink w

ve or

does it? Drink up, and

g--not because he had nothing to say, but because never before in his life had he felt so stupid, with so little control over eith

spoken to the police; he ought to have done something; under the circumstances no one but an idiot would have done absolutely nothing at all. Never mind--for the moment it was too late. He would do something to repair his error later. He would tell Miss St

here was something the matter with the key, or else with the lock--it would not open. It was a brand-new Gladstone, bought with a particular intent; Mr. Paxton was very far from being desirous that his proposed voyage to foreign parts should prematurely

rt of dim idea that it ought to be, and then on the other. He failed to light on it on either side. He paused for a moment to consider. Then, by degrees, distinctly remembered having placed it in a particular co

he bed. As it passed through the air something fell from it on to the

as a

And the more he stared the more his wonder grew. That it was a ring there could not be the slightest shadow o

as that have found its w

o see what it was. The shirt almost dropped from his hand in the shock of his amazement. Something gleamed at him f

as open, his eyes distended to their fullest; every feature of his countenance expressed the bewilderment he felt. The presence of a ring in that brand

e, filling him with a sense of strange excitement. He doubted if the bag were his. He leant over it to examine it more closely. New brown Gladstone bags, thirty inches in

t at a different shop; it had one buttonhole in front instead of three; it was not his size. He looked hastily at the rest of the things which were in the bag--they none of them were his. Had he had his wits about him he would have discovered that fact directly the bag was opened. Every garment seemed to have been intended

ing such a treasure trove have been exchanged for his? What eccentric and inexcusably careless indi

-the world-famed Datchet diamonds! Reflection showed him, too, that this astounding climax had been brought about by the simplest accident. He remembered that Mr. Lawrence had alighted from the railway carriage on to the Brighton platform with the Gladstone in his hand;--he remembered now, although it had not struck him at the time, that that bag, like his own, had been brown and new. In the refreshment-room Mr. Lawrence had put his ba

of the devil? He stared at the scintillating stones. He took them up and began to handle them. This, according to the paper, was the Amsterdam Necklace, so calle

nds not mean to him?--and he held it, literally, in the hollow of his hand. He did not know with certainty whose it was. Providen

n the collection was historical. As he toyed with them, holding them to the light, turning them this way and that, looking at

wer. Anyhow, it would be but to pass from one ditch to another. Supposing he obtained for them even a tithe of their stated value! At this crisis in his career, what a fresh start in life five-and-twenty thousand pounds would mean! It would mean the difference between hope and helplessness, between oppor

heir ill-gotten gains. She had lost them in any case. He--he had but found them. He endeavoured to insist upon it, to himself, that he had but found them. True, there was such a thing as the finder returning what he had found--particularly when

he did what was almost equally fatal, he allowed himself, half unconsciously--without venturing to put it into so many words--to drift. He would see which way the wind blew, and then, if he could, go with it. Fo

iting. I must hurry, or sh

from seeing himself quite clearly, or else the light was bad! But he saw enough of himself to be aware t

look old before his time." He set his teeth; something hard and savage came into his face. "But perhaps the luck has turned. I'd be a fool to throw a chance away if

which contained the news of the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds; the paper he put into a corner of the Gladstone bag which was

common or garden thief a chance of providing for himself for life; his qualms on the moral aspect of the sit

and he went out t