His keen intellect had not quite come back to him, he was still suffering from the effects of the drug. He had been robbed just at the moment when everything seemed to be going in his favour. His vanity was touched.
Balmayne picked up the coat and laid it on the table. There was just a dexterous motion and a flash of his white hands, then he smiled with the air of one who is perfectly and wholly satisfied with something.
"Are you better now?" he asked.
Maitrank looked up with a wolfish gleam in his eyes.
"I am getting to be myself again," he croaked. "You have got the better of me this time, but it will never happen again. Ah, you are keen and you are clever, but the old wolf is ever wiser than the young one. I have been robbed."
"You are pleased to say so," Balmayne said smoothly.
"I have been robbed, I tell you. What was the trick I know not yet, but I shall find out."
"You left this house all right with the diamonds in your possession," Balmayne went on; "you cannot deny that fact. We can find a policeman who will be able to testify to the fact that you went unmolested."
Maitrank groaned. He was still more or less childish over his loss.
"Where are the diamonds?" he asked. "Tell me that, rascal!"