"I think I should like just to step upstairs, and wish them good evening-not to be uncivil, don't you know— little business visit-take leave--"

"What was your business with them, Benny, in case of very awkward questions, hereafter; what was your little business?"

"Insurance-lives--"

"Bad lives; one, at any rate, if our information can be relied upon. I think you had better not rejoin them, Benny?"

The inspector's tone and manner were decidedly significant. Mr. Bingham hesitated, shot a keen glance at his old friend, began a response, and then checked himself. The look upon his pleasant visage was no longer cheery.

"Not?" said he.

"I think not," answered the inspector. "I have got to go and see them."

"Oh, well; if you think! All right, then. I don't insist."

แ "Come and talk to our friends, until I return," suggested the inspector, ending the colloquy.

They went back to the dinner-table, and apparently wound up an important conference on the character of certain continental banks. The inspector blamed his companions for awaiting him. He then filled a very small glass with brandy, swallowed the contents, and said he did not expect to be very long detained upstairs.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE inspector had gone as far as the door, when he stopped, partially retraced his steps, and beckoned Mr. Toppin towards him. That zealous and active officer obeyed the summons with promptitude.

"Give me a quarter of an hour," said the inspector to his subordinate. "If I don't return by a quarter of an hour from now"-they both looked at the large clock over the mantelpiece-"come for me to No. 19-second floor."

"Danger?" asked Toppin, in better spirits.

"Shouldn't think so; but in case——'

"What am I to do with this man, No. 21, the temperance swell?"

"Either call in a policeman, show your credentials, and hand him over to the French authorities without any more fuss, or—yes, this will be the better course-tell my old friend there, the Vicomte, that it's my express wish that he should remain with Neel until one of us comes back. The Vicomte will understand it, and he'll never leave him. Yes, that will be the better course. We may as well keep the affair in our own hands. The French police can do what they like with the murder case; but we don't want to have them meddling with the diamond robbery, which is strictly our business, Toppin."

"Just so," assented Toppin, in still better spirits; "our business entirely. I am quite of your opinion."

"Then, in fifteen, or, say, twenty minutes from now." The inspector resumed his journey through the vesti

bule, to the foot of the staircase. As he slowly ascended the two flights of stairs, he summed up the eventual aspects of the Park Lane inquiry. There was absolutely no evidence against anyone. There were presumptions— oh, any number of presumptions, likelihoods, and contingent "moral certitudes"--but when it came to finding the numerical values, as you might say, of these expressions, how the deuce were you to work them out? The inspector wished he could have brought his son Edgar with him, on this investigation. How that boy would have set to work upon his simultaneous equations of the first degree, with more than two unknown quantities!

Whether or not he succeeded presently, where was the case he could take into court? What connected the dead man, Remington, with the diamond robbery at old Stanislas Wilmot's residence in Park Lane? Young Mr. Sinclair, and the butler of the house, supposed to be the possible confederates of the deceased might be held to connect him with it. Yes; and young Mr. Sinclair would prove an alibi, very likely; and the butler, if apparently implicated, could get out of the position in a thousand ways, clearing the character of the deceased at the same time as he effected his own extrication. Suppose he, Byde, obtained possession of loose diamonds which would answer to the description of the property abstracted from the strong-room in Park Lane? Who was going to swear to them in court? Would Stanislas Wilmot, Esq., get into the witness-box and swear to the identity of the stones produced? Not exactly-to the satisfaction of the twelve good men and true. It reminded him of a trial he had once looked on at, in the Midlands. He must relate that story to his subordinate, when he rejoined him down

stairs. With regard to the Wilmot diamond robbery, there was no mistake about it-he had no case.

It did not follow that, because he had no case, he had no prospect of recovering the actual Wilmot property. For he certainly believed by this time that the property stolen from the Park Lane house were genuine diamonds, of the value represented. Any lingering doubt upon the subject might perhaps be dispelled by careful search of Brother Neel's luggage. He felt certain that the temperance lecturer had "sweated" the contents of the black velvet diamond case, that a brilliant or two--or three-or four-might be discovered in some corner of that gentleman's portmanteau, or in the lining of some garment, newly sewn. It was just possible that he was on the right track of the missing valuables; but he did not see a tangible case for a jury, so far. When he took cases into court he got convictions. It was his reputation for always clinching the evidence, all round, that had made his failure in that great temperance prosecution so terrible a blow. He could not risk his credit this time on the flimsiest of circumstantial claims. He'd get the property back, and ask no questions.

Was he, Byde,

And Brother Neel, of the I.O.T.A.! to lose this precious opportunity of wiping out that blunder which these temperance people brought up on the least occasion? He had hoped to hit them very hard indeed through Brother Neel.

Would he not be justified in indicating Brother Neel to the French police? Let him go and tell them such a tale as he had told Inspector Byde that evening, in the presence of Toppin! What would the Sûreté here think about it, and what would be their practical response? Ha!—a pretty narrative, would be their comment, to ex

plain the possession of an object which had avowedly been taken from the murdered man! Well-did he, George Byde, of the V Division, believe that narrative? To be quite frank upon the matter-hang it, bias apart! -yes, he did.

Brother Neel had stated that he could furnish no detail tending to identify the murderer; and it redounded to his credit, thought the inspector, that he had committed himself to nothing which might inculpate another individual, although he must have entertained suspicions, however slight, coinciding with those entertained by the inspector. Besides, if he, George Byde, should one of these days find it feasible to cancel that sign--with that, he wished to do it unassisted, with his own weapons, in a straightforward way. He did not want his colleagues, anywhere, to strike his retaliatory blow for him. It would be sweet to strike that blow, mused this vindictive inspector, of Division V-very sweet, afterwards, to quote Coriolanus to Aufidius, though not to die immediately thereupon.

Number 19. The inspector used no ceremony. There was the handle of the door; he turned the handle, pushed the door open, stepped across the threshold, and closed the door again behind him. The two occupants of the room were lounging in easy-chairs before the hearth; and from the cigars they held screwed into the corners of their mouths ascended thin blue wreaths of an exceeding fragrance.

"Well, who was your friend, Byers?" demanded Sir John, with a patronising drawl. Neither he nor his companion turned, or looked up, as the door closed.

"Grandpa's particular, that he's engaged to, I'll lay a