window, after a minute or two, the Sergeant walked into
the middle of the room, and stopped there, deep in thought, with his
eyes on Miss Rachel's bed-room door. After a little he roused himself,
nodded his head, as much as to say, "That will do," and, addressing me,
asked for ten minutes' conversation with my mistress, at her ladyship's
earliest convenience.

Leaving the room with this message, I heard Mr. Franklin ask the
Sergeant a question, and stopped to hear the answer also at the
threshold of the door.

"Can you guess yet," inquired Mr. Franklin, "who has stolen the
Diamond?"

"NOBODY HAS STOLEN THE DIAMOND," answered Sergeant Cuff.

We both started at that extraordinary view of the case, and both
earnestly begged him to tell us what he meant.

"Wait a little," said the Sergeant. "The pieces of the puzzle are not
all put together yet."

CHAPTER XIII

I found my lady in her own sitting room. She started and looked annoyed
when I mentioned that Sergeant Cuff wished to speak to her.

"MUST I see him?" she asked. "Can't you represent me, Gabriel?"

I felt at a loss to understand this, and showed it plainly, I suppose,
in my face. My lady was so good as to explain herself.

"I am afraid my nerves are a little shaken," she said. "There is
something in that police-officer from London which I recoil from--I
don't know why. I have a presentiment that he is bringing trouble and
misery with him into the house. Very foolish, and very unlike ME--but so
it is."

I hardly knew what to say to this. The more I saw of Sergeant Cuff, the
better I liked him. My lady rallied a little after having opened her
heart to me--being, naturally, a woman of a high courage, as I have
already told you.

"If I must see him, I must," she said. "But I can't prevail on myself
to see him alone. Bring him in, Gabriel, and stay here as long as he
stays."

This was the first attack of the megrims that I remembered in my
mistress since the time when she was a young girl. I went back to the
"boudoir." Mr. Franklin strolled out into the garden, and joined Mr.
Godfrey, whose time for departure was now drawing near. Sergeant Cuff
and I went straight to my mistress's room.

I declare my lady turned a shade paler at the sight of him! She
commanded herself, however, in other respects, and asked the Sergeant
if he had any objection to my being present. She was so good as to add,
that I was her trusted adviser, as well as her old servan