would set every police of the world on his track. And
we do no nothing, nothing!"

"Gently, Baumann, gently, you know very well that I do not agree with
you," said Mr. Lane.

Jack turned eagerly to the senior partner. He felt that the whining
German was below both his anger and contempt.

"Sir," said Jack earnestly, "if my father had in his charge a stone so
immensely precious, I fear he has met with foul play."

"Who knew of it?" said Mr. Lane. "Had he mentioned anything about it
to his man?"

"No, he had not," said Jack, and narrated at once what he had heard
from Buck Risley.

"Yes," said Mr. Lane, nodding, "it was the possession of the great
jewel which made him uneasy."

"Who can say what it was worth?" broke in Baumann fiercely. "A big
ruby of perfect colour and without flaw, remember, he said its like
did not exist, is of all stones the most precious. Diamonds, poof!
This ruby was worth a score of great diamonds."

"And if my father had with him so wonderful a stone," urged Jack on
Mr. Lane, "is it not almost certain that someone has learned of its
existence? and again I say that he has met with foul play."

"But who should know of it?" said Mr. Lane. "It is most unlikely that
he should mention it to anyone; and you say, moreover, that his own
companion knew nothing of it."

"But," cried Jack, and thought this point was a clincher, "he cabled
home to you about it, and word of it got abroad, perhaps, from the
telegraph office."

Mr. Lane shook his head. "He cabled to us in cipher," he said; "a
cipher which he had composed himself and wrote down for us before he
started. The paper has been safely locked up in our strong-room, and
it was the only copy in the world, for he told us that, for himself,
he should carry the cipher in his memory."

This was puzzling and baffling, and Jack was silent. In a moment he
put forward another point.

"But we are not sure the ruby has disappeared with my father," he
said; "it may be packed away in his baggage."

Mr. Lane shook his head once more. "No," he said, "that is very
unlikely. Your father would be certain to carry a thing so small and
so valuable on his person. He would never part with it night or day."

Again there was a short interval in which nothing was said. Into this
silence suddenly broke the grumbling roar of Baumann's great voice.
The German had been brooding over the disappearance of the great stone
until he was beside himself.

"_Ach Gott_,"