"The brandy revived Captain Ducie, and in a few minutes he was able to sit up and tell me what he wanted. He told me that he had been wounded accidentally in the shoulder, and bade me assist him off with his coat and vest. The coat he flung carelessly aside. The vest he doubled up, laid it on the sofa and sat down on it. Then I cut open his shirt and laid bare the wound on his shoulder. It was not very deep, but there had been a good deal of hemorrhage. With the coolness and knowledge of an old campaigner the captain instructed me how to bathe the wound and dress it with some salve which he produced from his dressing-case. Then he put on some clean linen, washed the smears from his face, hid the ugly gash in his cheek with a strip of court-plaster, and dressed. All this was done with a silence and celerity that astonished me.
"'So far, so good,' said Captain Ducie. 'I want you next to pack my small portmanteau. Put into it my dressing-case and all my papers, and as many of my clothes as it will hold. Then go and pack up a few things of your own. I want you to go with me, and in ten minutes I shall expect you to be ready to start.'
"I made some faint objections on the score of leaving M. Platzoff in such an unceremonious way.
"'I will take the entire responsibility on my own shoulders,' he said. 'Your excuses to M. Platzoff shall be made by me. You have nothing to fear on that score. As my shoulder is now, it is quite impossible for me to go up to town alone. You need only be away forty-eight hours, and I shall not forget to remunerate you for your trouble.'
"In ten minutes I was ready to start. 'If Captain Ducie has got the Diamond about him, as I fully believe he has,' I said to myself, 'then is my occupation at Bon Repos gone, and I care not if I never see the place again. My duty is evidently to accompany the gallant captain.'
"When I had packed my own little valise, I stole quietly into Cleon's room. It was still empty: the mulatto had not returned. Then I went softly down the corridor, pushed open the door of the smoke-room and looked in. No hand had touched the body of M. Platzoff since I left it last. I whispered 'Farewell,' covered up the white face, and left the room. I had one thing more to do. Taking a lighted candle in my hand I went into the little gallery that opens out of the drawing-room. In this gallery were several cases containing old coins, old china, rare fossils, and various other curiosities natural and artificial. It was one of these curiosities that I was in quest of. I knew where the key was kept that opened the cases. I got it and opened the case in which lay the object I was in search of. This object, to all appearance, was nothing more than a bit of green glass, except that its shape was rather uncommon. There was a small label near it, and this label I had one day been at the trouble of deciphering. The writing was so minute as almost to require a magnifying glass to read it by. After much difficulty I had succeeded in making out these words:
"'Model in paste of the G.M.D. by Bertolini of Paris.'
"M. Platzoff was dead; Cleon, for aught I knew to the contrary, was dead too. I was about to leave Bon Repos for ever--to leave it with the man who had stolen the genuine Diamond from the man who had stolen it from its rightful owner. Why should not I take possession of the paste Diamond? As a simple curiosity it might be a gratification to Lady P. to possess it. More than that: it seemed to me not impossible that certain eventualities might arise in which the possession of an exact model of the Diamond might be of service to us. Anyhow, I dropped it quietly into my pocket."