“And here,” continued the man in the corner, rubbing his long, bony fingers together, “arose the neatest little complication I have ever come across in a case of this kind. His Majesty had, it appears, privately made up his mind to accept Mr. Wilson’s bid, but the transaction had not yet been completed. Mr. Wilson and his wife came down to stay at Eton Chase on 29th June, and directly they arrived many of those present noticed that Mr. Wilson was obviously repenting of his bargain. This impression had deepened day by day, Mrs. Wilson herself often throwing out covert hints about ‘fictitious value’ and ‘fancy prices for merely notorious trinkets.’ In fact, it became obvious that the Wilsons were really seeking a loophole for evading the conclusion of the bargain. “On the memorable evening of the 5th July, Mrs. Wilson had been forced to retire to her room early in the evening, owing, she said, to a bad headache; her room was in the west wing of the Chase, and opened out on the same corridor as the apartments of Her Majesty the Queen. At half-past eleven Mrs. Wilson rang for her maid—Mary Pritchard, who, on entering her mistress’s room, met Mr. Wilson just coming out of it, and the girl heard him say: ‘Oh, don’t worry! I’ll have the whole reset when we get back.’ “The detectives, on the other hand, had obtained information that two or three days previously Mr. Wilson had sustained a very severe loss on the ’Change, and that he had subsequently remarked to two or three business friends that the Black Diamonds had become a luxury which he had no right to afford. “Be this as it may, certain it is that within a week of the notorious burglary the rumour was current in every club in London that James S. Wilson, the reputed American millionaire, having found himself unable to complete the purchase of the Black Diamonds, had found this other very much less legitimate means of gaining possession of the gems. “You must admit that the case looked black enough against him—all circumstantial, of course, for there was absolutely nothing to prove that he had the jewels in his possession; in fact no trace of them whatever had been found, but the public argued that Mr. Wilson would lie low with them for a while, and then have them reset when he returned to America. “Of course, ugly rumours of that description don’t become general about a man without his getting some inkling of them. Mr. Wilson very soon found his position in London absolutely intolerable: his friends ignored him at the club, ladies ceased to call upon his wife, and one fine day he was openly cut by Lord Barnsdale, an M.F.H., in the hunting field. “Then Mr. Wilson thought it high time to take action. He placed the whole matter in the hands of an able if not very scrupulous solicitor who promised within a given time to find him a defendant with plenty of means, against whom he could bring a sensational libel suit, with thundering damages.