"This needs talking over," he said to himself. "Here's a big new
development." He hailed a cab and was driven to Lincoln's Inn. He
found Mr. Buxton's sitting-room littered with the baggage they had
brought home, and Mr. Buxton himself in close confab with Buck Risley.

"Hullo, Jack," said the elder man, rising to shake hands with him;
"how have you been getting on with Lane and Baumann? You look
excited."

"Rather, Mr. Buxton," said Jack. "I have been learning a great deal."
He struck into his story at once, and the two men listened with great
interest.

"He had an immense ruby of incalculable value in his possession," said
Mr. Buxton slowly, when Jack had finished. "I say, this changes the
whole situation. I'm afraid, Jack, something very serious has happened
to your father."

"Then that's what was on the Professor's mind," cried Buck. "I knew
very well there was something. It was big enough to make even him
feel uneasy."

"It's an odd thing he didn't mention it to you, Risley," said Mr.
Buxton. "I've always understood that you were privy to all his
business movements."

"That's all right, Mr. Buxton," said Risley cheerfully. "You've got
that quite straight. In a general way the Professor hid nothing from
me. But this time he did hide it about the big stone, and I'm goin' to
show you how right, just as usual, the Professor was. You must
remember," went on Buck, "that when he picked me up at Mogok on the
way home, he found only a dim and distant shadder o' the party now
talkin' to you. I'd been on my back for weeks with fever, and was as
weak and nervous as a kitten. I've picked up wonderful on the voyage
home. Well, if he'd told me o' such a thing as he'd certainly got at
that moment in his belt, it would ha' rattled me to pieces. I should
have been certain to give the show away in my anxiety for fear anybody
should get to know about it, and do him a mischief. So he said nothing
at all. But it puts everything in a new light, everything."

"Buck!" cried Jack. "What about that fellow who stopped me on Rushmere
Heath and then turned up in Brindisi? Can he have something to do with
it?"

"Now you're talking, Jack," said Risley, nodding at the young man.
"'Twas all runnin' through my mind. It all hangs together, as straight
as a gun."

Buck knitted his brows in deep thought, and stared into the fire. Mr.
Buxton was about to speak, but Buck held up his hand for silence, and
the quiet remained unbroken till the