h a good many twenty-ruble notes."

V.

THE QUINTON JEWEL AFFAIR.

It was comparatively rarely that Hewitt came into contact with members of
the regular criminal class--those, I mean, who are thieves, of one sort or
another, by exclusive profession. Still, nobody could have been better
prepared than Hewitt for encountering this class when it became necessary.
By some means, which I never quite understood, he managed to keep abreast
of the very latest fashions in the ever-changing slang dialect of the
fraternity, and he was a perfect master of the more modern and debased
form of Romany. So much so that frequently a gypsy who began (as they
always do) by pretending that he understood nothing, and never heard of a
gypsy language, ended by confessing that Hewitt could _rokker_ better than
most Romany _chals_ themselves.

By this acquaintance with their habits and talk Hewitt was sometimes able
to render efficient service in cases of especial importance. In the
Quinton jewel affair Hewitt came into contact with a very accomplished
thief.

The case will probably be very well remembered. Sir Valentine Quinton,
before he married, had been as poor as only a man of rank with an old
country establishment to keep up can be. His marriage, however, with the
daughter of a wealthy financier had changed all that, and now the Quinton
establishment was carried on on as lavish a scale as might be; and,
indeed, the extravagant habits of Lady Quinton herself rendered it an
extremely lucky thing that she had brought a fortune with her.

Among other things her jewels made quite a collection, and chief among
them was the great ruby, one of the very few that were sent to this
country to be sold (at an average price of somewhere about twenty thousand
pounds apiece, I believe) by the Burmese king before the annexation of his
country. Let but a ruby be of a great size and color, and no equally fine
diamond can approach its value. Well, this great ruby (which was set in a
pendant, by the by), together with a necklace, brooches, bracelets,
ear-rings--indeed, the greater part of Lady Quinton's collection--were
stolen. The robbery was effected at the usual time and in the usual way in
cases of carefully planned jewelry robberies. The time was early
evening--dinner-time, in fact--and an entrance had been made by the window
to Lady Quinton's dressing-room, the door screwed up on the inside, and
wires artfully stretched about the grounds bel