"Yes."

"You have them?"

"I deposited them as usual."

"Bring them."

Angry as I was, I saluted, wheeled, and hastened off to the safe
deposit. The jewel-bag was delivered when I presented my printed slip;
I picked it up and marched back, savagely biting my mustache and
striving to control my increasing exasperation. Never before had I
endured insolence from a superior officer.

Mornac was questioning Speed as I entered, and that young man, who has
much self-control to learn, was already beginning to answer with
disrespectful impatience, but my advent suspended matters, and Mornac
took the bag of jewels from my hands and examined it. He seemed to be
in no hurry to empty it; he lolled in his chair with an absent-minded
expression like the expression of a cat who pretends to forget the
mouse between her paws. Danger was written all over him; I squared my
shoulders and studied him, braced for a shock.

The shock came almost immediately, for, without a word, he suddenly
emptied the jewel-bag on the desk before him. The bag contained
little pebbles wrapped in tissue-paper.

I heard Speed catch his breath sharply; I stared stupidly at the
pebbles. Mornac made a careless, sweeping gesture, spreading the
pebbles out before us with his restless, ringed fingers.

"Suppose you explain this farce?" he suggested, unmoved.

"Suppose _you_ explain it!" I stammered.

He raised his delicately arched eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that an hour ago that bag contained the diamonds from the
crucifix of Louis XI! I mean that I handed them over to you on my
arrival at this bureau!"

"Doubtless you can prove what you say," he observed, and his silver
penknife snapped shut like the click of a trap, and he lay back in his
padded chair and slipped the knife into his pocket.

I looked at Speed; his sandy hair fairly bristled, but his face was
drawn and tense. I looked at Mornac; his heavy, black eyes met mine
steadily.

"It seems to me," he said, "that it was high time we abolished the
Foreign Division, Imperial Military Police."

"I refuse to be discharged!" I said, hoarsely. "It is your word
against mine; I demand an investigation!"

"Certainly," he replied, almost wearily, and touched a bell. "Bring
that witness," he added to the soldier who appeared in answer to the
silvery summons.

"I mean an official inquiry," I said--"a court-martial. It is my
right where my honor is questioned."

"It is my right, when you