elephone messages were flying, or had flown, to the various
districts, and at every gate, thanks to the almost perfect system
instituted by Superintendent Bonfield, shrewd and keen-eyed men were
on the alert for any and all suspicious personages, and woe to those
whose descriptions were written down in the books of the secret
service men. They must be able to give good account of themselves, or
their liberty would be brief.

It was not difficult to guess why my friend and myself had been so
promptly summoned, in spite of the fact that already more than three
hundred men, trained detectives, from our own large cities and from
abroad, were upon duty here.

It was because they were on duty, every man at his post, whatever
that might be, and because Brainerd and myself--having newly arrived
and being for the moment unoccupied--were both near and available.
Because, too, we were specials, that is, not subject to routine
orders.

The robbery had really been a large one, and a bold one.

A collection of gems, cut and uncut, belonging to a foreign exhibit,
and placed almost in the centre of one of those great well-guarded
buildings, must be, one would think, proof against attack. Carefully
secured in their trays and boxes, shut and locked behind heavy plates
of glass in bronzed iron frames, guarded by day by trusted employes
always under the eye of manager or exhibitor, and by night by a guard
of drilled watchmen, what collection could be safer?

Nevertheless, at night there sparkled in those crystal prisms a little
silver leaf with slightly curved edges, holding what looked like a
tiny heap of water-drops, congealed and sparkling, shot through by a
winter sunbeam; several larger diamonds, uncut, but brilliant and of
great value; some exquisite specimens of pink topaz, and one great
limpid, gleaming emerald, the pride of the fine collection. This at
night. In the morning--they were not.

We sat down, a small group, for we did not hold council in the outer
office, nor with one superfluous member, and began to find or make for
ourselves a starting-point.

The work had been done very deftly. One of the glass plates had been
cut out close to the bronze frame, and the gems removed; but that was
not the strange part of the affair. In their places counterfeit gems
had been put, careful imitations of the originals, and the glass plate
had been deftly put in its place again.

'Ah!' said the fussy and half-distracted little man