undress, and get into bed, where I left him in charge of my housekeeper, promising to telegraph immediately to his wife. I then dropped the stone, not without a shudder, into my pocket and started for the office. Before I had gone a hundred yards it became clear to me that I must be rid of the thing at any cost. The placard bills of the evening papers blazoned the words "Robbery—Buckingham Palace—Strange Rumours" from every street corner. There would be the very devil to pay if the stone were found in my possession. My head ached with attempts to devise schemes of getting rid of it. The obvious plan was to drop it down a sewer or over Westminster Bridge—back staircase schemes all of them, I decided, and outside consideration.
Restore it to the Raja! I dare not. Who would believe my yarn that the thing had fallen at my feet from the clouds on a foggy night in Grosvenor Place? If only I could hand it to the Yellow Man, and earn the £5000! Impossible. Oh, quite impossible.
As I drew near the office I found the lamps lighted, and the streets enveloped in a fog denser even than that of the previous day. A furtive look played over the hall porter's face, and the messenger boys were beaming with suppressed excitement. When I reached my room I found that every drawer and cupboard had been ransacked. The hall porter, a faithful creature, entered the room without knocking, crept timorously towards me, and whispered in my ear: "'Scuse me, sir, but two men from Scotland Yard have been a searching here. Gone to your house now, sir, and one of them give me the tip, sir, that they would be back here soon."
I thanked him, locked the door, turned down the gas, and threw myself upon the sofa. What on earth was I to do with the stone? Some sort of decision must be arrived at immediately. The roomwas
