hose jewels! The jewels of the urim and thummim!" he
gasped, for he was out of breath with running. "I'm going on to the
police-station. Come to the museum as soon as you can, Jackson!
Good-bye!" He rushed distractedly out of the room, and I heard him
clatter down the stairs.

I was not long in following his directions, but I found when I arrived
that he had already returned with a police inspector, and another
elderly gentleman, who proved to be Mr. Purvis, one of the partners of
Morson and Company, the well-known diamond merchants. As an expert in
stones he was always prepared to advise the police. They were grouped
round the case in which the breastplate of the Jewish priest had been
exposed. The plate had been taken out and laid upon the glass top of
the case, and the three heads were bent over it.

"It is obvious that it has been tampered with," said Mortimer. "It
caught my eye the moment that I passed through the room this morning.
I examined it yesterday evening, so that it is certain that this has
happened during the night."

It was, as he had said, obvious that someone had been at work upon it.
The settings of the uppermost row of four stones--the carnelian,
peridot, emerald, and ruby--were rough and jagged as if someone had
scraped all round them. The stones were in their places, but the
beautiful gold-work which we had admired only a few days before had
been very clumsily pulled about.

"It looks to me," said the police inspector, "as if someone had been
trying to take out the stones."

"My fear is," said Mortimer, "that he not only tried, but succeeded. I
believe these four stones to be skilful imitations which have been put
in the place of the originals."

The same suspicion had evidently been in the mind of the expert, for he
had been carefully examining the four stones with the aid of a lens.
He now submitted them to several tests, and finally turned cheerfully
to Mortimer.

"I congratulate you, sir," said he, heartily. "I will pledge my
reputation that all four of these stones are genuine, and of a most
unusual degree of purity."

The colour began to come back to my poor friend's frightened face, and
he drew a long breath of relief.

"Thank God!" he cried. "Then what in the world did the thief want?"

"Probably he meant to take the stones, but was interrupted."

"In that case one would expect him to take them out one at a time, but
the setting of each of these has been loosened, an