Morgan coughed.
"It's on his mother's side," he replied. "That has a good deal to do with my story; so we'll say for the moment only a Great Personage, not far from F.D. himself. This Great Personage, by the way, is the most dignified and pompous figure in politics; the glossiest Top-Hat, the neatest Trouser-Press, the prince of unsplit infinitives and undamaged etiquette… Anyhow, he pulled some wires (you're not supposed to be able to do this) and landed Curt a berth in the Consular Service. It isn't a very good berth: some God-forsaken hole out in Palestine or somewhere, but Curt was coming over for a holiday round Europe before he took over the heavy labour of stamping invoices or what-not. His hobby, by the way, is the making of amateur moving-pictures. He's wealthy, and I gather he's got not only a full-sized camera, but also a sound apparatus of the sort the news-reel men carry.
"But, speaking of Great Personages, we now come to the other celebrity aboard the Queen Victoria, also paralysed with sea-sickness. This was none other than Lord Sturton — you know — the one they call the Hermit of Jermyn Street. He'll see nobody; he has no friends; all he does is collect bits of rare jewellery… "
Dr. Fell took the pipe out of his mouth and blinked.
"Look here," he said suspiciously, "there's something I want to know before you go on. Is this by any chance the familiar chestnut about the fabulous diamond known as the Lake of Light, or some such term, which was pinched out of the left eye of an idol at Burma, and is being stalked by a sinister stranger in a turban? Because, if it is, I'll be damned if I listen to you…
Morgan wrinkled his forehead sardonically.
"No," he said. "I told you it was a rummy thing; it's much queerer than that. But I'm bound to confess that a jewel does figure in the story — it was what tangled us up and raised all the hell when the wires got crossed — but nobody ever intended it to figure at all."
"H'm!" said Dr. Fell, peering at him.
"And also I am bound to admit that the jewel got stolen—"
"By whom?"