htfully silent for a few moments. Then he rose and said,
"Come next door, and I'll tell you how we stand. The housekeeper will
let us in, and we'll see if you can identify that black case anywhere."

It seemed that Hewitt had by this established a good understanding with
the housekeeper next door. "Nobody's been, sir," the man said, as he
admitted us and closed the heavy doors. "Office boy not come back, nor
nothing."

We went up to Denson's office on the third floor, the door of which the
housekeeper opened; and having turned on the electric light, he left
us.

"Now, is that anything like the case?" Hewitt asked, when the
housekeeper was gone; and he lifted from under the table the very black
case I had seen Samuel take into the brougham.

I said that I felt as sure of the case as of the brougham. And then
Hewitt told me the whole tale of Samuel and his loss of fifteen thousand
pounds' worth of diamonds, just as it appears earlier in this narrative.

"Now, see here," said Hewitt, when he had made me acquainted with his
client's tale, "there is something odd about all this. See this
post-card which Samuel gave me. It is from Denson, and it makes this
morning's appointment. See! 'Be down below at eleven sharp' is the
message. He came and he waited just two hours and a quarter, as he tells
me, being certain to the time within five minutes. That brings, us to a
quarter-past one--the time when he finds he is robbed; and he came
downstairs in a very agitated state at a quarter-past one, as I have
since ascertained. At two I pass and see him still dancing distractedly
on the front steps--certainly very much like a man who has had a serious
misfortune, or expects one. At a quarter-past two--that was about it, I
think?" (I nodded) "At a quarter-past two you see him, still agitated,
diving into the brougham with this black case in his hand; and a little
afterward--after all this, mind--he tells me this story of a robbery of
diamonds from that very case, and assures me that he sent for me the
moment he discovered the loss--that is to say, at a quarter-past one, a
positive lie--and has told nobody else. He further assures me that he
has told me everything that has happened up to the moment he meets me.
Then he goes away--to his office, as he tells me. But you find him
posting to Manchester Square in a cab, and there once more plunging into
that same mysterious closed brougham. Now why should he do that? He has
seen the person