Brodie had replaced the diamonds, one by one, in the little bag. He handed them over to his companion and motioned them all towards the door. The old gentleman moved wearily along, leaning upon his granddaughter's arm. Aaron Rodd hurried forward and opened the door. He tried to say something, but the girl turned from him contemptuously. He stood on the threshold, listening to their slow footsteps as they descended into the street. Then he swung back into the room, slammed the door and sank into the chair in front of his desk. It was as though he had passed through some terrible nightmare. He sat gazing out through the shadows. Had it all really happened? Then he caught a faint, unfamiliar breath of perfume which suddenly set his heart beating with unaccustomed vigour. A little morsel of white lace lay underneath the chair upon which she had been seated. He stooped and picked it up, smoothed it out, and let it slip from his fingers almost in despair. It was all true, then! She had sat in that chair, had come to his office, trusting him, had walked into the Harvey-Grimm-cum-Brodie trap! * * * * * It was an hour or more before Harvey Grimm returned. He closed the door after him and came briskly across the floor. "Well, young fellow," he exclaimed, "you can't say that I haven't fished you out of the backwaters." "I wish to God you'd left me there!" was the bitter reply. "Tell me what's happened to her?" "To her?--oh, the young lady!" Harvey Grimm murmured, with an illuminating smile. "She's all right. She's back at the Milan by this time." "They couldn't identify the diamond, then?" Aaron Rodd asked eagerly. "Not by a long chalk," was the smiling reply. "To tell you the truth, Brodie's about the sickest man in London just now. The stone he rolled out in front of the expert they had waiting down at Scotland Yard was----" "Was what?" "A lump of paste," Harvey Grimm declared, lighting a cigarette. "Queer business, eh?" "There's no charge against the old gentleman and his granddaughter, then?" Aaron Rodd demanded breathlessly. "None whatever. Why not try a cigarette, Aaron? You're all nerves." The lawyer pushed the box away from him. "You may think this sort of thing's worth while," he declared gloomily. "I can't say that I do. There'll be no reward to share, and it seems to me that we've made an enemy----" "There's no reward," Harvey Grimm agreed, "but there's this." He drew his handkerchief from his pocket. A diamond almost as large as a cobnut rolled over and lay upon the desk. Aaron Rodd stared at it in amazement. "What's that?" he demanded. "One of the Van Hutten diamonds," was the triumphant reply. "Look at it well. You won't see it again. By this time to-morrow it will have been cut." Aaron Rodd was stupefied. He looked from the stone up to his companion's face. Even his demand for some elucidation was mute.