The very day after the rioting, when all Nushapore was being searched for evidence, the police with great pride had brought him back the casket which had been left open on the table with the pink dewdrops beside it, when Mrs. Chris fled with the _khânsâman_ of Rickett-_sahib bahadur_ (who was killed). It was now closed, and had been discovered, they said, in the house of one Govind, who had been arrested on suspicion. And he, to screen himself doubtless from worse accusations, had stated that he had found it flung away on the road not far from the blazing bungalow. Therefore, since it was evidently a jewel casket, it was most likely part of the _Huzoor's_ lost property; and if so, he could detail its contents and open the spring-lock with his key, in order that the description might be duly verified and the necessary forms filled up. For one brief second Mr. Lucanaster had returned thanks to such gods as he possessed for this small mercy. Here was something saved from the general _débâcle_; to begin with, a very valuable ruby--and---- And then had come the horrid recollection of a certain string of pearls which could not be claimed. It had nearly killed him to deny the ownership of the casket; but he had denied it. There was literally nothing else to be done, with that spring-lock and the key in his possession. So when the police took it away in order to find the rightful owner, he had gone into his room at the hotel--it was next the one to which Mrs. Chris had been taken--and shaken his fist at her through the wall, and sworn horribly not only at his own loss, but at the gain of others, which, with his experience in jewel-jobbing, he knew would follow. And it did; for no sooner was the casket filed open by the police and its contents made known by a list, than owners began to crop up--crowds of them. But it was when an assistant police-officer at the club, thinking to rouse him from his general despondency by putting him on the track of a good thing, mentioned that there had been a ruby in the casket which he really ought to get hold of; a ruby that had been claimed, on irrefragable evidence, as an heirloom by a peculiarly impecunious member of the Royal Family, from whom he could no doubt get it cheap without much trouble--it was then that Mr. Lucanaster had fled from his fellows, and actually wept to think that after three years' hard scheming he had bought that ruby at something like its real value. That had been the worst blow; but there had been similar ones, and quite a large number of the pensioners invested in new cocks and quails and went about with cheerful countenances.