hamed yet of the
doubts which this experience called up in regard to all his friends, he
shut up the false stone with his usual care and buried his loss in
his own bosom, till he could sift his impressions and recall with some
degree of probability the circumstances under which this exchange could
have been made.

It had not been made that evening. Of this he was positive. The only
persons present on this occasion were friends of such standing and
repute that suspicion in their regard was simply monstrous. When and
to whom, then, had he shown the diamond last? Alas, it had been a long
month since he had shown the jewel. Cecilia, his youngest daughter, had
died in the interim; therefore his mind had not been on jewels. A month!
time for his precious diamond to have been carried back to the East!
Time for it to have been recut! Surely it was lost to him for ever,
unless he could immediately locate the person who had robbed him of it.

But this promised difficulties. He could not remember just what persons
he had entertained on that especial day in his little hall of cabinets,
and, when he did succeed in getting a list of them from his butler, he
was by no means sure that it included the full number of his guests. His
own memory was execrable, and, in short, he had but few facts to offer
to the discreet agent sent up from Scotland Yard one morning to hear
his complaint and act secretly in his interests. He could give him carte
blanche to carry on his inquiries in the diamond market, but little
else. And while this seemed to satisfy the agent, it did not lead to any
gratifying result to himself, and he had thoroughly made up his mind to
swallow his loss and say nothing about it, when one day a young cousin
of his, living in great style in an adjoining county, informed him that
in some mysterious way he had lost from his collection of arms a unique
and highly-prized stiletto of Italian workmanship.

Startled by this coincidence, Mr. Grey ventured upon a question or two,
which led to his cousin's confiding to him the fact that this article
had disappeared after a large supper given by him to a number of friends
and gentlemen from London. This piece of knowledge, still further
coinciding with his own experience, caused Mr. Grey to ask for a list
of his guests, in the hope of finding among them one who had been in his
own house.

His cousin, quite unsuspicious of the motives underlying this request,
hastened to write out th