ce will do as long as it is where he can find it again
when he gets back home. He might leave it in his other clothes, or--"

"Make that two triple magnums, waiter," cried Mr. Wilkins, excitedly,
interrupting me. "Postlethwaite, you're a genius, and if you ever want a
house and lot in Calcutta, just let me know and they're yours."

You never saw such a change come over a man in all your life. Where he
had been all gloom before, he was now all smiles and jollity, and
from that time on to his return to India Mr. Wilkins was as happy as a
school-boy at the beginning of vacation. The next day the diamond was
lost, and whoever may have it at this moment, the British Crown is not
in possession of the Jigamaree gem.

But, as my friend Terence Mulvaney says, that is another story. It is of
the mystery immediately following this concerning which I have set out
to write.

I was sitting one day in my office on Apollyon Square opposite the
Alexandrian library, smoking an absinthe cigarette, which I had rolled
myself from my special mixture consisting of two parts tobacco, one part
hasheesh, one part of opium dampened with a liqueur glass of absinthe,
when an excited knock sounded upon my door.

"Come in," I cried, adopting the usual formula.

The door opened and a beautiful woman stood before me clad in most regal
garments, robust of figure, yet extremely pale. It seemed to me that I
had seen her somewhere before, yet for a time I could not place her.

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" said she, in deliciously musical tones, which,
singular to relate, she emitted in a fashion suggestive of a recitative
passage in an opera.

"The same," said I, bowing with my accustomed courtesy.

"The ferret?" she sang, in staccato tones which were ravishing to my
musical soul.

I laughed. "That term has been applied to me, madame," said I, chanting
my answer as best I could. "For myself, however, I prefer to assume the
more modest title of detective. I can work with or without clues, and
have never yet been baffled. I know who wrote the Junius letters, and
upon occasions have been known to see through a stone wall with my naked
eye. What can I do for you?"

"Tell me who I am!" she cried, tragically, taking the centre of the room
and gesticulating wildly.

"Well--really, madame," I replied. "You didn't send up any card--"

"Ah!" she sneered. "This is what your vaunted prowess amounts to, eh?
Ha! Do you suppose if I had a card with my name on it