h
the eye of a trained observer. I am one of those people who, from having
knocked about the world a lot, engaging in a multifarious variety of
occupations, have picked up a queer scrap-heap of knowledge, and I will
lay you any odds you like that I am absolutely correct in affirming that
the box which I just now handed to Maggie, the chambermaid, was newly
made by a Russian cabinet-maker within the last four weeks!"

"For a purpose?" suggested Allerdyke.

"Just so--for a purpose," assented Fullaway. "That purpose being, of
course, its substitution for the real original article. You did not
handle the box which is now upstairs--it is carefully weighted, though it
is empty. I believe--nay, I am sure, it contains a sheet of lead under
its delicate lining of satin. That, of course, was to deceive
Mademoiselle. You heard her say that the jewels were in her box at
Christiania, and that she never opened the box until this evening here in
Edinburgh? Very good--between here and Christiania somebody substituted
the imitation box for the real one. Ah!--in all these great criminal
operations there is nothing like sticking to the old, well-worn,
tried-and-proved tricks of the trade!--they are like well-oiled,
well-practised machinery. And now we come back to the real, great,
anxious question--Who did it? And there, Allerdyke, we are at
present--only at present, mind!--up against a very big, blank wall."

"On the other side of which, my lad, lies the secret of the murder of my
cousin," said Allerdyke grimly. "Mind you that! That's what I'm after,
Fullaway. Damn all these jewels and things, in comparison with
that!--it's that I'm after, I tell you again, and a thousand times again.
And I'm considering if I'm doing any good hanging round here after this
singing woman when the probable sphere of action lies yonder away at
Hull, eh?"

"The proper--not probable--sphere of action, my dear sir, is the
supper-table to which we're presently going," answered Fullaway, with
supreme assurance. "What the singing woman, as you call her, can tell us
will most likely make all the difference in the world to our
investigations. Remember the shoe-buckle! Have it ready to exhibit when I
lead up to it. Then--we shall see."

The prima donna, back for her engagement at eleven o'clock, came in
flushed and smiling--the extraordinary warmth and fervour of her
reception by the audience which she had at first been so inclined to
treat with scant courtesy