buttons of the pilot coat betrayed the vessel which this young man had served. His cap, needless to say, they did not find. He wore jack-boots such as an officer of a merchantman would wear; his clothes were of Navy serge; there was a briar pipe in his left-hand pocket, a silver tobacco box in his right; he carried a gold watch, and it had stopped at five minutes past five o’clock. The time, however, could not refer to the morning of this discovery. It was the coastguardsman’s opinion that the body had been at least three days in the water.

Such a fatality naturally deserved no more than a brief paragraph in any daily paper. I should have heard nothing of it but for my friend Murray, of Scotland Yard, who telegraphed for me upon the afternoon of the following day; and, upon my arrival at his office, astonished me very much by first showing me an account of the circumstance in the Eastern Daily Press, and then passing for my examination a roll of cotton wool such as diamond brokers carry.

Eastern Daily Press

“I want your opinion,” he said without preface. “Do you know anything of the jewels in that parcel?”

There were four stones lying a-glitter upon the wool. One of them, a great gem of some hundred and twenty carats, rose-coloured, and altogether magnificent, I recognised at a single glance at the precious stones.

“That,” I said, “is the Red Diamond of Ford Valley. Ask Baron Louis de Rothschild, and he will tell you whose property it was.”

“Would you be very surprised to hear that it was found upon the body of the young sailor?”

“Murray,” I said, “you have known me too long to expect me to be surprised by anything.”

“But it is somewhat out of the way, isn’t it? That’s why I sent for you. The other stones don’t appear to be of the same class. But they’re valuable, I should think.”

I turned them over in my hand and examined them with little interest.

“This pure white is a Brazilian,” said I. “It may be worth a hundred and fifty pounds. The other two are jewellers’ common stuff. They would make a pretty pair of ear-rings for your daughter, Murray. You should make the Treasury an offer for them. Say fifty for the pair.”

“The police haven’t much money to waste on the ladies’ ears,” he said rather hardly; “we prefer ’em without 

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