in that brougham, presumably, an hour before, and there
can be nothing more to communicate, except the result of his interview
with me--a thing I warned him to keep to himself. It's odd, isn't it?"

"It is. What can be his motive?"

"I want to know his motive. I object to working for a client who
deceives me--indeed, it's unsafe. I may be making myself an accomplice
in some criminal scheme. You observe that he never called for the
police--a natural impulse in a robbed man. Indeed, he expressly vetoes
all communication with the police."

"Of course he gave reasons."

"But the reasons are not good enough. I can't stop a man leaving this
country anywhere round the coast except by going to the police."

"Can it be," I suggested, "that Samuel and Denson are working in
collusion, and have perhaps insured the stones, and now want your help
to make out a case of loss?"

"Scarcely that, I think, for more than one reason. First, it isn't a
risk any insurer would take, in the circumstances. Next, the insurer
would certainly want to know why the police were not informed at once.
But there is more. I have not been idle this while, as you would know.
I will tell you some of the things I have ascertained. To begin with,
Samuel is known in Hatton Garden only as a dealer on a very small and
peddling scale. A dabbler in commissions, in fact, rather than a buyer
and seller of diamonds in quantities on his own account. His office is
nothing but a desk in a small room he shares with two others--small
dealers like himself. When I spoke to the people most likely to know, of
his offering fifteen thousand pounds' worth of diamonds on his own
account, they laughed. An investment of two or three hundred pounds in
stones was about his limit, they said. Now that fact offers fresh
suggestions, doesn't it?" Hewitt looked at me significantly.

"You mean," I said after a little consideration, "that Samuel may have
been entrusted with the diamonds to sell by the real owner, and has made
all these arrangements with Denson to get the gems for themselves and
represent them as stolen?"

Hewitt nodded thoughtfully. "There's that possibility," he said. "Though
even in that case the owner would certainly want to know why the police
had not been told, and I don't know what satisfactory answer Samuel
could make. And more, I find that no such robbery has been reported to
any of the principal dealers in Hatton Garden to-day; and, so far as I
can ascertai