"You have my deepest sympathy," Reggie said; "but you did not bring us here to listen to a story that has no point to it like yours. You have got some scheme in your head for getting hold of the stones. But you can't do it alone." "If I could should I be such a cursed fool as to bring you two in?" Richford growled. "But I--but I can't appear. All I can do is to show you the way and trust to your honour to give me a third of the plunder when it is turned into cash." "Hadn't you better get to the point?" Reggie suggested with undisguised eagerness. "I'm coming to that. After my interview with my wife I sat in the hall trying to pull myself together. Presently I saw her ladyship come down and go to the office. Those diamonds had been deposited in the hotel safe for obvious reasons. My wife came out of the office presently with the case in her hand. Then I recognized what had happened. She was afraid of some move of mine, and she was going to deposit the stones elsewhere. It did not take me long to make up my mind where she was going. She was about to take the plunder to Hilton in Bond Street." "How long ago?" the woman called Cora asked eagerly. "This is important." "Well, not more than an hour, anyway," Richford replied. "Why do you ask?" "Because Hilton closes at five," the woman said. "I know that, because the firm has done several little jobs for me lately. You may be pretty sure that your wife did not deposit those stones at Hilton's to-day; therefore she still has them in her pocket. That being so, what we have to do now is to discover where she has gone. If you like I'll go round to the _Royal Palace Hotel_ at once and see if she has returned. I'll ask the clerk in the office, and if he says she has returned, you may safely bet that those stones are back in the hotel safe again. If she has not returned, they are still on her person." "It's just as well to make sure," Reggie said reflectively. The woman flitted away and came back soon with a smile on her face. "So far, so good," she said. "The lady has not returned to the hotel. Now, Mr. Richford, if you can only put us on the track of the timid little hare, then----" "Done with the greatest possible ease," Richford replied. "She's gone to Wandsworth. I can't make the thing out at all, and in any case it does not in the least matter. When I was waiting for my wife just now I saw a letter to her from Berrington,--Colonel Berrington. As you know, he is a prisoner in Audley Place, and why he should have written that letter, or how Sartoris persuaded the warrior to write it, I don't know any more than Adam. But that's where she has gone. If you can intercept her before she gets there, or waylay her when she leaves, why there you are. I don't suppose my wife will tell Sartoris that she has all that stuff in her pocket." "Do you think that she took a cab?" Reggie asked.