iddle of his head there was a patch of hair as white as snow.

"We worked this clew for all it was worth, and, a month later, I
received a cable despatch from Paris, saying that a man answering to
the description of the Waldorf suspect had offered an enormous crimson
diamond for sale to a jeweller in the Palais Royal. Unfortunately the
fellow took fright and disappeared before the jeweller could send for
the police, and since that time McFarlane in London, Harrison in
Paris, Dennet in Berlin, and Clancy in Vienna had been chasing men
with white patches on their hair until no gray-headed patriarch in
Europe was free from suspicion. I myself had sleuthed it through
England, France, Holland, and Belgium, and now I found myself in
Antwerp at the Hotel St. Antoine, without a clew that promised
anything except another outrage on some respectable white-haired
citizen. The case seemed hopeless enough, unless the thief tried again
to sell the gem. Here was our only hope, for, unless he cut the stone
into smaller ones, he had no more chance of selling it than he would
have had if he had stolen the Venus of Milo and peddled her about the
Rue de Seine. Even were he to cut up the stone, no respectable gem
collector or jeweller would buy a crimson diamond without first
notifying me; for although a few red stones are known to collectors,
the color of the Crimson Diamond was absolutely unique, and there was
little probability of an honest mistake.

"Thinking of all these things, I sat sipping my Rhine wine in the
shadow of the yellow awnings. A large white cat came sauntering by and
stopped in front of me to perform her toilet, until I wished she would
go away. After a while she sat up, licked her whiskers, yawned once or
twice, and was about to stroll on, when, catching sight of me, she
stopped short and looked me squarely in the face. I returned the
attention with a scowl, because I wished to discourage any advances
towards social intercourse which she might contemplate; but after a
while her steady gaze disconcerted me, and I turned to my Rhine wine.
A few minutes later I looked up again. The cat was still eying me.

"'Now what the devil is the matter with the animal,' I muttered; 'does
she recognize in me a relative?'

"'Perhaps,' observed a man at the next table.

"'What do you mean by that?' I demanded.

"'What I say,' replied the man at the next table.

"I looked him full in the face. He was old and bald and appeared
wea