"My good friend, I know that it is useless for me to thank you, for even if you wanted thanks I could not do justice to the occasion, as they say in speeches: but I want to ask you just one more question, and then I won't keep you any longer from that delightful Oriental Club of yours which I suppose you are bound to. Now that I have got the stone I am, as you may well believe, more than anxious to find the lady to whom it shall belong--again, as I suppose you would say. To my great disgust, the Professor and his daughter have disappeared from the sphere of London society for a holiday _a deux_, and have, apparently with intent, left all their friends in ignorance of their destination. Have you any idea of it? I know that that Coptic woman whom you employ has been ordered to keep a sharp watch on the movements of Miss Nitocris." "Yes, Highness," replied Phadrig, "and she has obeyed her orders. The day before they left she waylaid that pretty maid of Miss Marmion's on the Common, and told her fortune. Of course, she talked the usual jargon about lovers and letters and going on a journey, and the maid quite innocently let out that she was going with her master and mistress by steamer to Denmark and up the coast of Norway, and then over to Iceland by the passenger steamers, and that she did not like the idea at all, because she knew that she would be very seasick." "Excellent! the very thing!" exclaimed the Prince. "It couldn't be better if I had arranged it myself. My yacht is down in the Solent waiting for Cowes Week. I'll be afloat to-morrow. Give that woman a ten-pound note from me with my blessing. Now, I shall leave everything else to you. Do what you think fit with regard to our friends of the International. Kill as many of their spies as you can with safety, and make the chiefs believe that they are fighting the Devil himself. And now, good-night." When Peter Petroff brought him the papers the next morning, the Prince took up the _Telegraph_, and turned to the page devoted to the minor events of the previous day. His eye was almost immediately caught by a paragraph headed: "SUICIDE IN THE WATERLOO ROAD