"Good Heavens!" said Sir Edgar. "Do you mean to tell me the jewels are hidden like that?"
"I do," said Cleek. "It is no wonder that Sammy Blake felt assured of his booty, for unless his accomplices betrayed him he was safe beyond all discovery. He knew that between the police searching for them, and his own pals thirsting for revenge, he would stand a very poor chance of getting them away hidden in any ordinary manner. Hence the circus. It was ingenious, to say the least of it!"
"But how did he get them in?" asked Lady Brenton.
"Very simply, as I will show you. But first I will try and relieve some of these animals of their burden. Sir Edgar, Doctor, and Mr. Wynne, if you will lend me a hand——"
Suiting the action to the word, they made the round of the cages. In nearly every case Cleek abstracted some valuable jewel from its occupant's pouch. He had left the cage containing one kangaroo to the last. The animal was a large one, and it took the united efforts of the men to overpower it. But at last they succeeded, and Cleek gave a little cry of triumph as he held up to their astonished gaze a huge amethyst-coloured stone, flashing and quivering in the dim light of the torches.
"The Purple Emperor," cried Lady Margaret, breathlessly, and Cleek, with a little bow, passed it to her.
"Yes, Lady Margaret, and the quicker you get that into custody of the bank the safer your life will be, and——"
He stopped short, alert and intent, for a sound had come to his trained ears. Someone else had entered the vault. Quickly he stepped back into the shadow of the cages where he was hidden from view. There came a sound at the back of the room, a snarl, half human, half animal. But it was a man's figure that leaped across and snatched the great jewel away from the soft hands of Lady Margaret. Both the girl and her companions were too dazed by the sudden appearance of this uncouth being, his clothes covered with green mould, his hair dishevelled, his eyes glaring, to do anything but stare at him in utter astonishment.
"It's mine at last!" he shrieked, and turned to go back the way he had come.
But Cleek was in front of him and the entry closed. Noiselessly and swiftly he had worked his way round, and now stood looking at the man who but a few short hours back had had him trussed and bound in the wine-cellar on the other side of the house.