he talking, sir," he directed the detective; "ye have all the
facts."

While Durham talked, then, we all listened--excepting the Chinaman, who
was past taking an intelligent interest in anything, and who, to judge
from his starting eyes, was being slowly strangled.

"The gentleman," said Durham--"Mr. Nicholson--arrived two days ago from
the East. He is a buyer for a big firm of diamond merchants, and some
weeks ago a valuable diamond was stolen from him------"

"By this!" interrupted the Scotsman, shaking the wretched Hi Wing Ho
terrier fashion.

"By Hi Wing Ho," explained the detective, "whom you see before you. The
theft was a very ingenious one, and the man succeeded in getting away
with his haul. He tried to dispose of the diamond to a certain Isaac
Cohenberg, a Singapore moneylender; but Isaac Cohenberg was the bigger
crook of the two. Hi Wing Ho only escaped from the establishment of
Cohenberg by dint of sandbagging the moneylender, and quitted the town
by a boat which left the same night. On the voyage he was indiscreet
enough to take the diamond from its hiding-place and surreptitiously to
examine it. Another member of the Chinese crew, one Li Ping--otherwise
Ah Fu, the accredited agent of old Huang Chow!--was secretly watching
our friend, and, knowing that he possessed this valuable jewel, he also
learned where he kept it hidden. At Suez Ah Fu attacked Hi Wing Ho and
secured possession of the diamond. It was to secure possession of the
diamond that Ah Fu had gone out East. I don't doubt it. He employed Hi
Wing Ho--and Hi Wing Ho tried to double on him!

"We are indebted to you, Mr. Knox, for some of the data upon which
we have reconstructed the foregoing and also for the next link in the
narrative. A fireman ashore from the Jupiter intruded upon the scene at
Suez and deprived Ah Fu of the fruits of his labours. Hi Wing Ho seems
to have been badly damaged in the scuffle, but Ah Fu, the more wily of
the two, evidently followed the fireman, and, deserting from his own
ship, signed on with the Jupiter."

While this story was enlightening in some respects, it was mystifying in
others. I did not interrupt, however, for Durham immediately resumed:

"The drama was complicated by the presence of a fourth character--the
daughter of Cohenberg. Realizing that a small fortune had slipped
through his fingers, the old moneylender dispatched his daughter in
pursuit of Hi Wing Ho, having learned upon which vessel the lat