his not being fit to be trusted to look after them!
However, I tell him it is of no consequence. I don't know how they went.
He would not tell me the story until you came down."

"I am sorry to say it is true, Mrs. Cunningham, although I can assure
you that I really cannot blame myself for either carelessness or
stupidity. I knew when I started that there was a very great risk, and
took what seemed to me every possible precaution, for in addition to
Dick Chetwynd going with me, I took two detectives from Bow Street and
two prize fighters."

Exclamations of surprise broke from both ladies.

"And yet, in spite of all that, these things were stolen," Millicent
said. "How on earth did they do it? I should have sewn them up in my
pockets inside my dress."

"I sewed them up in the waistband of my trousers, Millicent, and yet
they managed, in spite of us, to steal them. And now I must begin by
telling you the whole history of those diamonds, and you will understand
why I thought it necessary to take a strong party with me."

He then told them, repeating the history the Colonel had given his
father of the diamonds, and the conviction that he had, that he had been
followed by Hindoos, and the instructions he had given for the disposal
of the bracelet.

"As you know," he said, "nothing happened to confirm my uncle's belief
that there were men over here in search of the diamonds during my
father's life, but since then I have come to the same conclusion that he
had, and felt positive that I was being constantly followed wherever I
went. As soon as I heard where the treasure was I began to take every
precaution in my power. I avoided going to the bank after my first visit
there, and, as you know, would not bring the things for you to look
at. I got Dick Chetwynd to go there, open the case, and take out these
diamonds. He did not bring them away with him, but fetched them from
there the morning we started. He went down and took the passage for us
both at the shipping office, and the pugilists and the detectives each
took passages for themselves, so that I hoped, however closely I was
followed, they would not learn that I was taking them to Amsterdam."

"It was very wrong, Mark; very wrong indeed," Millicent broke in. "You
had no right to run such a terrible risk; it would have been better for
you to have taken the diamonds and thrown them into the Thames."

"That would not have improved matters," he said; "the Indians would