t be off!" he hastily said as he noted the time.

On his way over to Folkestone, Major Alan Hawke mused over his great
coup, as he lay at ease, wrapped up in a traveling rug, and now
resplendent in a fur-trimmed top coat, befrogged and laced, which
indicated the officer en retraite.

"I will first do up Holland, Belgium, and Denmark, and take a little
preliminary look around Paris," mused the Major, studying a list of the
missing jewels which Captain Anstruther had artfully arranged. Sundry
deductions and additions, with an admirable disorder in the items
(judiciously divided and reclassified) served to guard against any old
confidences exchanged between Ram Lal and his secret friend Hawke. The
real list in the original was now in the private pocket-book of the
Viceroy.

"Each of our Consuls at the cities you are to visit has this list," said
Anstruther to the Major, "and you can vary your travel as you choose,
but visit all these jewel marts, and report to the local Consuls. If
they have further orders for you, you will get them there, at first
hands. Should you find that any of the jewels have been offered for
sale, simply report the facts to the local Consul, and write under seal
to me at the Junior United Service, then go on and examine further at
once! You are to take no steps whatever to recover them, or to alarm
the thieves! All your expenses and your pay will be advanced by me!" The
acute schemer decided not to risk any suspicions by marketing his own
jewels. "They might bounce me for the murder," fearfully mused the
Major. "I could show no honest title through Ram Lal. They might arrest
him, and I need him to pay the protested drafts--later, when I go back
on the Viceroy's staff!" He smiled and wove his webs like a spider in
his den.

On his arrival in Paris, from a run to the Low Countries, a week later,
Major Alan Hawke betook himself at once to No. 9 Rue Berlioz. And there
Marie Victor greeted him, handing him a letter which was dated from
Jitomir, Volhynia. "How is your mistress?" he affably demanded.

"She is well, and will remain for several months longer in Russia!"
politely answered Marie, bowing him out.

"By God, then, she has given up the chase! I see it all!" mused Hawke,
as he pored over the letter on his way to the Hotel Binda. "The trump
card she wished to play was to blast the old fellow's hopes of a
baronetcy. Death has struck down her prey, and, she will now wait till
the girl is free!