ght; but, on the other hand, I consider myself
justified in publishing the following account of what actually
occurred, especially as so many false rumours have been put abroad
concerning the case. However, as I said at the beginning, I hold no
grievance, because my worldly affairs are now much more prosperous
than they were in Paris, my intimate knowledge of that city and the
country of which it is the capital bringing to me many cases with
which I have dealt more or less successfully since I established
myself in London.

Without further preliminary I shall at once plunge into an account of
the case which riveted the attention of the whole world a little more
than a decade ago.

The year 1893 was a prosperous twelve months for France. The weather
was good, the harvest excellent, and the wine of that vintage is
celebrated to this day. Everyone was well off and reasonably happy, a
marked contrast to the state of things a few years later, when
dissension over the Dreyfus case rent the country in twain.

Newspaper readers may remember that in 1893 the Government of France
fell heir to an unexpected treasure which set the civilised world
agog, especially those inhabitants of it who are interested in
historical relics. This was the finding of the diamond necklace in
the Chateau de Chaumont, where it had rested undiscovered for a
century in a rubbish heap of an attic. I believe it has not been
questioned that this was the veritable necklace which the court
jeweller, Boehmer, hoped to sell to Marie Antoinette, although how it
came to be in the Chateau de Chaumont no one has been able to form
even a conjecture. For a hundred years it was supposed that the
necklace had been broken up in London, and its half a thousand stones,
great and small, sold separately. It has always seemed strange to me
that the Countess de Lamotte-Valois, who was thought to have profited
by the sale of these jewels, should not have abandoned France if she
possessed money to leave that country, for exposure was inevitable if
she remained. Indeed, the unfortunate woman was branded and
imprisoned, and afterwards was dashed to death from the third storey
of a London house, when, in the direst poverty, she sought escape from
the consequences of the debts she had incurred.

I am not superstitious in the least, yet this celebrated piece of
treasure-trove seems actually to have exerted a malign influence over
everyone who had the misfortune to be connected