I will ask you to be present at the confrontation. Perhaps
you will wait for me in the cab. There is a nasty fog outside, and you
will be more private. Will you give me those beautiful bank-notes? Thank
you! Don't be anxious. I won't be long.'

"He lifted his hat, and slipped the notes into the inner pocket of his
magnificent fur coat. As he did so, Mr. Schwarz caught sight of a rich
uniform and a wide sash, which no doubt was destined to carry additional
moral weight with the clever rogue upstairs.

"Then His Imperial Majesty's police officer stepped quickly out of the
cab, and Mr. Schwarz was left alone."

CHAPTER XIII

A CUNNING RASCAL

"Yes, left severely alone," continued the man in the corner with a
sarcastic chuckle. "So severely alone, in fact, that one quarter of an
hour after another passed by and still the magnificent police officer in
the gorgeous uniform did not return. Then, when it was too late, Schwarz
cursed himself once again for the double-dyed idiot that he was. He had
been only too ready to believe that Prince Semionicz was a liar and a
rogue, and under these unjust suspicions he had fallen an all too easy
prey to one of the most cunning rascals he had ever come across.

"An inquiry from the hall porter at the North-Western elicited the fact
that no such personage as Mr. Schwarz described had entered the hotel.
The young man asked to see Prince Semionicz, hoping against hope that
all was not yet lost. The Prince received him most courteously; he was
dictating some letters to his secretary, while the valet was in the next
room preparing his master's evening clothes. Mr. Schwarz found it very
difficult to explain what he actually did want.

"There stood the dressing-case in which the Prince had locked up the
jewels, and there the bag from which the secretary had taken the
bank-notes. After much hesitation on Schwarz's part and much impatience
on that of the Prince, the young man blurted out the whole story of the
so-called Russian police officer whose card he still held in his hand.

"The Prince, it appears, took the whole thing wonderfully
good-naturedly; no doubt he thought the jeweller a hopeless fool. He
showed him the jewels, the receipt he held, and also a large bundle of
bank-notes similar to those Schwarz had with such culpable folly given
up to the clever rascal in the cab.

"'I pay all my bills with Bank of England notes, Mr. Schwarz. It would
have been wiser, perhaps, if y