dam. It was to be deposited in that city
with a famous diamond-cutter, and it was to be cut up into from four to
six separate stones. The stones were then to be sold for what they
would fetch, and the proceeds were to be applied to the founding of that
professorship of experimental chemistry, which the Colonel has since
endowed by his Will. Now, Betteredge, exert those sharp wits of yours,
and observe the conclusion to which the Colonel's instructions point!"

I instantly exerted my wits. They were of the slovenly English sort; and
they consequently muddled it all, until Mr. Franklin took them in hand,
and pointed out what they ought to see.

"Remark," says Mr. Franklin, "that the integrity of the Diamond, as a
whole stone, is here artfully made dependent on the preservation from
violence of the Colonel's life. He is not satisfied with saying to the
enemies he dreads, 'Kill me--and you will be no nearer to the Diamond
than you are now; it is where you can't get at it--in the guarded
strong-room of a bank.' He says instead, 'Kill me--and the Diamond will
be the Diamond no longer; its identity will be destroyed.' What does
that mean?"

Here I had (as I thought) a flash of the wonderful foreign brightness.

"I know," I said. "It means lowering the value of the stone, and
cheating the rogues in that way!"

"Nothing of the sort," says Mr. Franklin. "I have inquired about that.
The flawed Diamond, cut up, would actually fetch more than the Diamond
as it now is; for this plain reason--that from four to six perfect
brilliants might be cut from it, which would be, collectively, worth
more money than the large--but imperfect single stone. If robbery for
the purpose of gain was at the bottom of the conspiracy, the Colonel's
instructions absolutely made the Diamond better worth stealing. More
money could have been got for it, and the disposal of it in the diamond
market would have been infinitely easier, if it had passed through the
hands of the workmen of Amsterdam."

"Lord bless us, sir!" I burst out. "What was the plot, then?"

"A plot organised among the Indians who originally owned the jewel,"
says Mr. Franklin--"a plot with some old Hindoo superstition at the
bottom of it. That is my opinion, confirmed by a family paper which I
have about me at this moment."

I saw, now, why the appearance of the three Indian jugglers at our house
had presented itself to Mr. Franklin in the light of a circumstance
worth noting.

"I