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“Confound that upset! I shall be two minutes behind time—I wish I had walked all the way, instead of trusting to the supposed extra speed of a ’bus, when the streets are so slippery that horses cannot keep their feet.”

Thus soliloquised Harley Riddell, ruefully, as he hurriedly picked his way through the somewhat aggressive conglomeration of wagons, hansoms, ’buses and fourwheelers, which threatened to still further belate his arrival at the establishment of his employers, Messrs. Stavanger, Stavanger and Co., diamond merchants, of Hatton Garden.

By dint of an extra spurt from the corner of Holborn Viaduct, he managed to be less unpunctual than he had expected; but, somewhat to his surprise, he fancied that the assistants whom he encountered betrayed signs of suppressed excitement, which were not at all in keeping with the usual decorous quietude of Messrs. Stavanger’s aristocratic establishment. Still more astonished was he to notice that, whatever the reason for the unusual excitement may have been, it became intensified by his arrival. But there was just a tinge of alarm mingled with his astonishment when he perceived that both the Brothers Stavanger and Mr. Edward Lyon, who was the “Co.” in the business, were here before him. As not one of these gentlemen had ever been known to come to business before eleven o’clock in the forenoon, Harley may be excused for thinking it odd that they should all be here on this particular morning before the city clocks had boomed ten, and that, furthermore, they should all stand gazing at him with expressions which suggested suspicion and anathema.

“Nothing wrong, I hope, sirs?” was Harley’s impulsive question.

“You are no doubt the best judge of that,” said Mr. David Stavanger, who, being a vicar’s churchwarden, systematically cultivated a dignified bearing and an impressive mode of speech. “Probably the atrocious injury to which we have been subjected has been exposed to the light of detection sooner than you bargained for. You perceive, Mr. Detective,” he continued, turning to a short, but very well-built man of middle age, who was also contemplating our hero with unusual interest, “you perceive the instantaneous working of an evil conscience! No sooner does this ingrate see us here a few moments before our usual time than he jumps to the very natural conclusion that he is at the end of his criminal tether.”

“I beg your pardon,” interrupted the detective, whose name was John Gay. “Your deductions, Mr. Stavanger, are possibly more decided than correct. We have yet to hear what this gentleman has to say for himself, and you will perhaps let me remind you that it is dangerous to make statements that we perhaps may be unable to prove.”

“Gentleman, indeed!” exclaimed Mr. David.

“Yes sir, with your permission, gentleman—until we have proved him otherwise.”

“That will be an easy matter,” put in Hugh Stavanger, the son of the senior partner. “Everything points to him, and him alone, as the thief.”

Harley had not noticed Hugh Stavanger’s presence until he thus unpleasantly made it apparent. He had, in fact, been stupefied by the extraordinary words and behaviour of those around him. But at the word “thief” every fibre of his body thrilled with passion, and he strode hastily forward to the side of Hugh Stavanger, exclaiming “Retract that word! or, by Heaven——”

“Ah! he would add violence to his other crimes,” said Mr. David, hastily sheltering himself behind Mr. Samuel Stavanger’s more portly person. “Take care, Hugh, my boy! There is never any knowing how far these desperadoes will go when they are aroused. Mr. Gay, I insist upon your duty being done at once.”

By this time Harley was calm again outwardly, but his calm was as that of the ocean which a deluge of rain is beating into a surface smoothness which the still heaving waters below would fain convert into mountainous breakers.

Thief! Desperado! Was it possible that he was alluded to? He looked at the faces of those around him, and read condemnation in them all. Nay, there was at least one countenance which was impassive, one breast in which a trace of fairplay seemed to linger. He would appeal to the detective for an explanation of this horrible mystery.

“Will you,” he began, in a voice whose steadiness and quietness surprised even himself, “will you tell me what is the matter? and why I am glared at as if I were a wild beast?”

“Yes, pray go through the mockery of an explanation,” cried Mr. David.

“Sir,” replied Mr. Gay, “it is by no means certain that an explanation would be a mockery in this case.”

“Why, you yourself said everything pointed to this man’s guilt,” contended Mr. David.

“Very likely,” was the dry reply. “I said that everything seemed to point to your manager’s guilt. But I did not say that it proved it. That is another thing, and slightly out of my province.”

“And meanwhile,” said Harley, “I am still in the dark.”

“There has been a robbery of a serious and extensive nature, and you are suspected of being the thief,” said the detective, carefully watching the face of the stricken Harley. “It is my duty to arrest you in the name of the law, and I warn you against saying anything that may be construed against you at the trial.”

“Since when has this tremendous robbery taken place?” asked Harley. “Everything was secure when I left the premises last night at seven o’clock.”

“Who was here when you left?” asked Mr. Lyon, taking part in the conversation for the first time.

“No one, sir. The members of the firm had all left early. Mr. Hugh, to whom I usually hand the keys, being also gone, I locked all the cases up, lighted the gas, padlocked the door, delivered the door-key to the night-watchman, and took the keys of the safes to Mr. David Stavanger’s house. I put them into his own hands.”

“That is quite true, so far as the delivery of the keys goes,” said Mr. David. “What I want to know is this—What have you done with the stones you abstracted before you locked the safes?”

“Excuse me once more,” interrupted the detective, “you will have all necessary questions fully answered at the preliminary inquiry. Meanwhile Mr. Harley Riddell must consider himself a prisoner.”

“You will permit me to send a message to my brother?”

“Certainly.”

One of the shopmen, to whom Harley had always been kind, hurriedly produced a piece of paper and a pencil, and Harley, in whom surprise at his own calmness was still the dominant sensation, quickly wrote as follows:—“Dear Lad, I believe I am under arrest for wholesale robbery. It would be too absurd to protest my innocence to my twin soul. Ascertain where I am taken to, and break the news gently to the dear mother, before it reaches her in some other way. Tell her that the mystery is bound to be cleared up soon. As for Annie—God help her and me, for how can she ally herself to a man who has been under arrest?—Harley.”