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Page 91
"The museum has been robbed!" I cried, springing up in bed.
"I fear so! Those jewels! The jewels of the urim and
thummim!" he gasped, for he was out of breath with running. "I'm
going on to the police-station. Come to the museum as soon as
you can, Jackson! Good-bye!" He rushed distractedly out of the
room, and I heard him clatter down the stairs.
I was not long in following his directions, but I found when I
arrived that he had already returned with a police inspector, and
another elderly gentleman, who proved to be Mr. Purvis, one of the
partners of Morson and Company, the well-known diamond merchants.
As an expert in stones he was always prepared to advise the police.
They were grouped round the case in which the breastplate of the
Jewish priest had been exposed. The plate had been taken out and
laid upon the glass top of the case, and the three heads were bent
over it.
"It is obvious that it has been tampered with," said Mortimer.
"It caught my eye the moment that I passed through the room this
morning. I examined it yesterday evening, so that it is certain
that this has happened during the night."
It was, as he had said, obvious that someone had been at work
upon it. The settings of the uppermost row of four stones--the
carnelian, peridot, emerald, and ruby--were rough and jagged as if
someone had scraped all round them. The stones were in their
places, but the beautiful gold-work which we had admired only a few
days before had been very clumsily pulled about.
"It looks to me," said the police inspector, "as if someone had
been trying to take out the stones."
"My fear is," said Mortimer, "that he not only tried, but
succeeded. I believe these four stones to be skilful imitations
which have been put in the place of the originals."
The same suspicion had evidently been in the mind of the
expert, for he had been carefully examining the four stones with
the aid of a lens. He now submitted them to several tests, and
finally turned cheerfully to Mortimer.
"I congratulate you, sir," said he, heartily. "I will pledge
my reputation that all four of these stones are genuine, and of a
most unusual degree of purity."
The colour began to come back to my poor friend's frightened
face, and he drew a long breath of relief.
"Thank God!" he cried. "Then what in the world did the thief
want?"
"Probably he meant to take the stones, but was interrupted."
"In that case one would expect him to take them out one at a
time, but the setting of each of these has been loosened, and yet
the stones are all here."
"It is certainly most extraordinary," said the inspector. "I
never remember a case like it. Let us see the watchman."
The commissionaire was called--a soldierly, honest-faced man,
who seemed as concerned as Ward Mortimer at the incident.
"No, sir, I never heard a sound," he answered, in reply to the
questions of the inspector. "I made my rounds four times, as
usual, but I saw nothing suspicious. I've been in my position ten
years, but nothing of the kind has ever occurred before."
"No thief could have come through the windows?"
"Impossible, sir."
"Or passed you at the door?"
"No, sir; I never left my post except when I walked my rounds."
"What other openings are there in the museum?"
"There is the door into Mr. Ward Mortimer's private rooms."
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