“My dear Jackson,” he cried, “I am so delighted that you have come, for this is a most inexplicable business.”
“What has happened, then?”
He waved his hand towards the case which contained the breastplate.
“Look at it,” said he.
I did so, and could not restrain a cry of surprise. The setting of the middle row of precious stones had been profaned in the same manner as the upper ones. Of the twelve jewels, eight had been now tampered with in this singular fashion. The setting of the lower four was neat and smooth. The others jagged and irregular.
“Have the stones been altered?” I asked.
“No, I am certain that these upper four are the same which the expert pronounced to be genuine, for I observed yesterday that little discoloration on the edge of the emerald. Since they have not extracted the upper stones, there is no reason to think the lower have been transposed. You say that you heard nothing, Simpson?”
“No, sir,” the commissionaire answered. “But when I made my round after daylight I had a special look at these stones, and I saw at once that some one had been meddling with them. Then I called you, sir, and told you. I was backwards and forwards all the night, and I never saw a soul or heard a sound.”
“Come up and have some breakfast with me,” said Mortimer, and he took me into his own chambers.—“Now, what do you think of this, Jackson?” he asked.
“It is the most objectless, futile, idiotic business that ever I heard of. It can only be the work of a monomaniac.”