alive or dead? If alive, where is he
now living? If he did really steal the diamond, are not the chances as a
hundred to one that he disposed of it long ago? But even granting that
we were in a position to answer all these questions; suppose, even, that
this M. Platzoff were living in Eastbury at the present moment, and that
fact were known to us, how much nearer should we be to the recovery of
the diamond than we are now? Your ladyship must please to bear in mind
that as the case is now we have not an inch of legal ground to stand
upon. We have no evidence that would be worth a rush in a court of law
that M. Platzoff really purloined the diamond. We have no trustworthy
evidence that the diamond itself ever had an existence."

"Surely, Mr. Madgin, my son's letter is sufficient to prove that fact."

"Sufficient, perhaps, in conjunction with the other evidence, to prove
it in a moral sense, but certainly not in a legal one," said Mr. Madgin,
quietly but decisively. "Your ladyship must please to bear in mind that
Captain Chillington in his letter makes no absolute mention of the
diamond by name; he merely writes of it vaguely under certain initials,
and, if called upon, how could you prove that he intended those initials
to stand for the words _Great Hara Diamond_, and not for something
altogether different? If M. Platzoff were your ladyship's next-door
neighbour, and you knew for certain that he had the diamond still in his
possession, you could only get it from him as he himself got it from
your son--by subterfuge and artifice. Your ladyship will please to
observe that I have put forward no opinion on the case. I have merely
offered a statement of plain facts as they show themselves on the
surface. With those facts before you it rests with your ladyship to
decide what further steps you wish taken in the matter."

"My good Madgin, do you know what it is to hate?" demanded Lady
Chillington. "To hate with a hatred that dwarfs all other passions of
the soul, and makes them pigmies by comparison? If you know this, you
know the feeling with which I regard M. Platzoff. If you want the key to
the feeling, you have it in the fact that his accursed hands robbed my
dead son: even then you must have a mother's heart to feel all that I
feel." She paused for a moment as if to recover breath; then she
resumed. "See you, Mr. Solomon Madgin; I have a conviction, an
intuition, call it what you will, that this Russian scoundrel is still