"Good God, how dreadful! Can nothing be done? What does the prosecutor say the brooch is worth?"
"His uncle, he says, gave a hundred and twenty guineas for it. But that signifies little, for were its worth only a hundred and twenty farthings, compromise is, you know, out of the question."
"I did not mean that. Can you show it me? I am a pretty good judge of the value of jewels."
"Yes, you can see it." I took it out of the desk in which I had locked it up, and placed it before her. It was a splendid emerald, encircled by large brilliants.
My wife twisted and turned it about, holding it in all sorts of lights, and at last said, "I do not believe that either the emerald or the brilliants are real—that the brooch is, in fact, worth twenty shillings intrinsically."
"Do you say so?" I exclaimed, as I jumped up from my chair, for my wife's words gave color and consistence to a dim and faint suspicion which had crossed my mind. "Then this Saville is a manifest liar, and perhaps confederate with——But give me my hat: I will ascertain this point at once."
I hurried to a jeweller's shop, and found that my wife's opinion was correct. Apart from the workmanship, which was very fine, the brooch was valueless. Conjectures, suspicions, hopes, fears, chased each other with bewildering rapidity through my brain, and in order to collect and arrange my thoughts, I stepped out of the whirl of the streets into Dolly's Chop-house, and decided, over a quiet glass of negus, upon my plan of operations.
The next morning there appeared at the top of the second column of the "Times" an earnest appeal, worded with careful obscurity, so that only the person to whom it was addressed should easily understand it, to the individual who had lost or been robbed of a false stone and brilliants at the theatre, to communicate with a certain person—whose address I gave—without delay, in order to save the reputation, perhaps the life, of an innocent person.
I was at the address I had given by nine o'clock. Several hours passed without bringing any one, and I was beginning to despair, when a gentleman of the name of Bagshawe was announced: I fairly leaped for joy, for this was beyond my hopes.
A gentleman presently entered, of about thirty years of age, of a distinguished, though somewhat dissipated aspect.