as planned to put John Eustace
and the lawyers off the scent. If it should turn out that
the box was opened before it left Portray, that the door
of her ladyship's room was cut by her ladyship's self,
or by his lordship with her ladyship's aid, and that the
fragments of the box were carried out of the hotel by
his lordship in person, it will altogether have been so
delightful a plot, that all concerned in it ought to be
canonised,--or at least allowed to keep their plunder. One
of the old detectives told me that the opening of the box
under the arch of the railway, in an exposed place, could
hardly have been executed so neatly as was done;--that no
thief so situated would have given the time necessary to
it; and that, if there had been thieves at all at work,
they would have been traced. Against this, there is the
certain fact,--as I have heard from various men engaged in
the inquiry,--that certain persons among the community of
thieves are very much at loggerheads with each other,--the
higher, or creative department in thiefdom, accusing the
lower or mechanical department of gross treachery in
having appropriated to its own sole profit plunder, for
the taking of which it had undertaken to receive a certain
stipulated price. But then it may be the case that his
lordship and her ladyship have set such a rumour abroad
for the sake of putting the police off the scent. Upon the
whole, the little mystery is quite delightful; and has put
the ballot, and poor Mr. Palliser's five-farthinged penny,
quite out of joint. Nobody now cares for anything except
the Eustace diamonds. Lord George, I am told, has offered
to fight everybody or anybody, beginning with Lord Fawn
and ending with Major Mackintosh. Should he be innocent,
which, of course, is possible, the thing must be annoying.
I should not at all wonder myself, if it should turn out
that her ladyship left them in Scotland. The place there,
however, has been searched, in compliance with an order
from the police and by her ladyship's consent.

Don't let Mr. Palliser quite kill himself. I hope the
Bonteen plan answers. I never knew a man who could find
more farthings in a shilling than Mr. Bonteen. Remember
me very kindly to the duke, and pray enable poor Fawn to
keep up his spirits. If he likes to arrange a meeting with
Lord George, I shall be only too