nd he is free. 'Vengeance is Mine,'
saith the Lord, but I want to repay it myself. I want to----"

Here he leant across the table and turned his sightless eyes upon me.

"This is certainly a curious sort of missionary," I said to myself as I
watched him, "He may be smitten on one cheek, but I scarcely fancy he
would be content to turn the other to the striker."

At this moment Coddy leant forward in his chair, and placed his hand
upon his friend's arm. The effect was magical. His fit of impotent rage
died down as suddenly as it had sprung up, and immediately he became
again the quiet, suave, smoothspoken individual who had first entered
my office.

"I must beg your pardon, Mr. Fairfax," he said, in a totally different
voice to that in which he had just spoken. "When I remember how we have
been wronged I am apt to forget myself. I trust you will forgive me?"

"I will do so willingly," I answered. "You have certainly won the right
to be excused if you entertain a feeling of resentment for the man who
has treated you so shamefully. And now to resume our conversation?"

"What were you about to say?"

"I was about to ask you the number and description of the stones of
which he robbed you. You told me they numbered ninety-three in all, if I
remember aright. Can you tell me how many there were of each?"

"Forty-eight rubies and forty-five sapphires," he replied without a
moment's hesitation. "The rubies were uncut and of various sizes,
ranging perhaps from ten to eighty carats. They were true rubies, not
spinels, remember that. The sapphires ran from fifteen carats to sixty,
and there was not a flaw amongst them."

"Has Hayle any knowledge of the value of precious stones?"

"There's not a keener judge in the East. He would be a cunning man who
would succeed in taking him in about the value of anything from a
moonstone to a ruby."

"In that case he would, in all probability, know where to place them to
the best advantage?"

"You may be sure that was his intention in coming to England. But we
have tried Hatton Garden and can hear nothing of him there."

"He may have disposed of some of them on the continent," I said.
"However, we will soon clear that point up. The size of the larger
stones is so unusual that they would be certain to attract attention.
And now one other question. Are you aware whether he has any friends or
relatives in England?"

"So far as we know he has not a single relative in the world," Kitwa