“Well, as to that I wouldn’t speak positively,” said the inspector, “but we have five diamonds here, and I don’t doubt that they were stolen.”
“I have reason to think,” replied Mr. Parks, “that the larger of them was stolen from my residence.”
He proceeded at once to describe the stone, and he had not spoken a dozen words before the inspector was convinced that the owner of the diamonds had appeared.
One of the smaller stones he also described very closely, and he expressed the opinion that all of them were his.
“They were stolen on the night of August 3d,” said he. “A burglar took the entire contents of my wife’s jewel casket.”
“What else did he take?” asked Nick.
Mr. Parks seemed to be much embarrassed.
“Nothing else,” he replied, at last, “except some money which was in my pocketbook.”
“What was your total loss?”
“In excess of thirty thousand dollars.”