The noise of the report had not yet died away, and the cloud of smoke got wholly clear of the muzzle of the Baron's revolver, when the door of the room was thrown open to admit some one, who in low, clear, even, authoritative tones, asked a question--

"Who's making this noise?"

Whether the Baron's aim had this time been truer there was, as yet, no evidence to show. Cyril had, at any rate, escaped uninjured. At the sound of the voice, which, although it had been heard by him so seldom, had already become too familiar, he glanced round towards the questioner. It was Lawrence. He stood just inside the door, looking from the Baron to the involuntary target of that gentleman's little pleasantries. Close behind him were two men, whom Paxton immediately recognised as old acquaintances; the one was the individual who had taken a bed for the night at Makell's Hotel, who had shown such a pertinacious interest in his affairs, and whom he had afterwards suspected of an attempt to effect an entrance through his bedroom door; the second was the person who, the next morning, had followed him to the Central Station, and of whose too eager attentions he had rid himself by summoning a constable.

In the looks which Lawrence directed towards the Baron there seemed to be something both of reproach and of contempt.

"Pray, what is the meaning of this?"

The Baron made a movement in the air with one hand, then pointed with it to the revolver which he held in the other.

"My friend, it is only a little practice which I have--that is all! It is necessary that I keep my hand well in--not so--eh?"

Lawrence's voice as he replied was alive with quiet scorn.

"I would suggest that you should choose a more appropriate occasion on which to indulge yourself in what you call a little practice. Did it not occur to you, to speak of nothing else, that it might be as well to make as little, instead of as much, noise as you conveniently could?" He went and stood in front of Mr. Paxton. "I am sorry, sir, that we should meet again under such disagreeable conditions; but, as you are aware, the responsibility for what has occurred cannot, justly, be laid either on my friends or on myself."

Paxton's reply was curt. The abrupt, staccato, contemptuous tone in which he spoke was in striking contrast to Lawrence's mellifluous murmurings.

"I am aware of nothing of the sort."

Lawrence moved his head with a slight gesture of easy courtesy, which might, or might not, have been significative of his acquiescence in the other's point-blank contradiction.

"What is that upon your face--blood?"

"That is proof positive of your bungling friend's bad markmanship. He would, probably, have presented me with a few further proofs of his incapacity had you postponed your arrival for a few minutes longer."

Lawrence repeated his former courteous inclination.

"My friend is a man of an unusual humour. Apt, occasionally, like the rest of us, to rate his capacities beyond their strict deserts." He turned to the two men who had come with him into the room. "Untie Mr. Paxton's legs." Then back again to Cyril. "I regret, sir, that it is impossible for me, at the moment, to extend the same freedom to your arms and hands. But it is my sincerest trust that, in a very few minutes, we may understand each other so completely as to place it in my power to restore you, without unnecessary delay, to that position in society from which you have been withdrawn."

Although Paxton was silent outwardly, his looks were eloquent of the feelings with which he regarded the other's well-turned phrases. When his legs had been freed, the two newcomers, standing on either side of him as if they had been policemen, urged him forward, until he stood in front of the heavy table which occupied the centre of the room. On the other side of the table Lawrence had already seated himself on the only chair which the place contained. The Baron, still holding his revolver, had perched himself on a corner of the table itself. Lawrence, leaning a little forward on his chair, with one arm resting on the table, never lost his bearing of apparent impartiality, and, while he spoke with an air of quiet decision, never showed signs of a ruffled temper.

"I have already apologised to you, sir, for the discomforts which you may have endured; but, as you are aware, those discomforts you have brought upon yourself."

Paxton's lips curled, but he held his peace.

"My friends and I are in the position of men who make war upon society. As is the case in all wars, occasions arise on which exceptional measures have to be taken which, though unpleasant for all the parties chiefly concerned, are inevitable. You are an example of such an occasion."

Cyril's reply was sufficiently scornful.

"You don't suppose that your wind-bag phrases hoodwink me. You're a scoundrel; and, in consort with other scoundrels, you have taken advantage of a gentleman. I prefer to put the matter into plain English."

To this little outburst Lawrence paid no attention. For all the notice he seemed to take of them the contemptuous words might have remained unuttered.

"It is within your knowledge that, in pursuit of my profession, I appropriated the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds. I do not wish to impute to you, Mr. Paxton, acts of which you may have not been guilty; therefore I say that I think it possible it was by accident you acquired that piece of information. It is in the same spirit of leniency that I add that, at the refreshment-rooms at the Central Station, it was by mistake that you took my Gladstone bag in exchange for your own. I presume that at this time of day you do not propose to deny that such an exchange was effected. In that Gladstone bag of mine, which you took away with you by mistake instead of your own, as you know, were the Datchet diamonds. What I have now to ask you to do--and I desire, I assure you, Mr. Paxton, to ask you with all possible courtesy--is to return those diamonds at once to me, their rightful owner."

"By what process of reasoning do you make out that you are the rightful owner of the Datchet diamonds?"

"By right of conquest."

"Right of conquest! Then, following your own line of reasoning, even taking it for granted that all you have chosen to say of me is correct, I in my turn have become their rightful owner."

"Precisely. But the crux of the position is this. If the duchess could get me into her power she would stick at nothing to extort from me the restitution of the stones. In the same way, now that I have you in my power, I intend to stick at nothing which will induce their restoration from you."

"The difference between you and myself is, shortly, this--you are a thief, and I am an honest man."

"Pray, Mr. Paxton, what is your standard of honesty? If you were indeed the kind of honest man that you would appear to wish us to believe you are, you would at once have handed the stones to the police, or even have restored them to the duchess."

"How do you know that I have not?"

"I will tell you how I know. If you had been so honest there would not be in existence now a warrant to arrest you on the charge of stealing them. Things being as they are, it happens that there is."

"It's an impudent lie!"

"Possibly you may believe it to be an impudent lie; still, it is the truth. A warrant for your arrest has been granted to-day to your friend Ireland, of Scotland Yard, on his sworn information. I merely mention this as evidence that you have not handed the stones to the police, that you have not returned them to the duchess, but that you have retained them in your possession with a view of using them for purposes of your own, and that, therefore, your standard of morality is about on a level with ours."

"What you say is, from first to last, a tissue of lies. You hound! You know that! Although it is a case of five to one, my hands are tied, and so it's safe to use what words you please."

Lawrence, coming closer to the table, leaned both his elbows on the board, and crossed his arms in front of him.

"It seems, Mr. Paxton, as if you, a man of whose existence I was unaware until the other day, have set yourself to disappoint me in two of the biggest bids I have ever made for fortune and for happiness. I am a thief. It has never been made sufficiently plain to me that the difference between theft and speculation is such a vital one as to clearly establish the superiority of the one over the other. But even a thief is human--sometimes very human. I own I am. And it chances that, for some days now, I had begun to dream dreams of a most amusing kind--dreams of love--yes, and dreams of marriage. I chanced to meet a certain lady--I do not think, Mr. Paxton, that I need name any names?"

"It is a matter of indifference to me whether you do so or not."

"Thank you, very much. With this certain lady I found myself in love. I dreamt dreams of her--from which dreams I have recently arisen. A new something came into my life. I even ventured, in my new-learned presumption, to ask her would she marry me. Then for the first time I learned that what I asked for already had been given, that what I so longed for already was your own. It is strange how much one suffers from so small a thing. You'd not believe it. In our first fall, then, it seems that you have thrown me.

"Then there is this business of the Datchet jewels. A man of your experience cannot suppose that an affair of this magnitude can be arranged and finished in a moment. It needs time, and careful planning, and other things to boot. I speak as one who knows. Suppose you planned some big haul upon the Stock Exchange, collected your resources, awaited the propitious second, and, when it came, brought off your coup. If in that triumphant moment some perfect stranger were to carry off, from underneath your very nose, the spoils for which you had risked so much, and which you regarded, and rightly regarded, as your own, what would your feelings be towards such an one? Would you not feel, at least, that you would like to have his blood? If you have sufficient imagination to enable you to place yourself in such a situation, you will then be able to dimly realise what, at the present moment, our feelings are towards you."

Paxton's voice, when he spoke, was, if possible, more contemptuous than ever.

"I care nothing for your feelings."

"Precisely; and, by imparting to us that information, you make our task much easier. We, like others, can fight for our own hands--and we intend to. You see, Mr. Paxton, that, although I did the actual conveying of the diamonds, and therefore the major share of the spoil is mine, there were others concerned in the affair as well as myself, and they naturally regard themselves as being entitled to a share of the profits. You have, consequently, others to deal with as well as myself, for we, to be plain, are many. And our desire is that you should understand precisely what it is we wish to do. The first thing which we wish you to do is to tell us where, at the present moment, the diamonds are?"

"Then I won't, even supposing that I know!"

Lawrence went on without seeming to pay any heed to Cyril's unqualified refusal--

"The second thing which we wish you to do--supposing you to have placed the diamonds where it will be difficult for us to reach them--is to give us an authority which will be sufficient to enable us to demand, as your agents, if you choose, that the diamonds be handed to us without unnecessary delay."

"I will do nothing of the kind."

Again Lawrence seemed to allow the refusal to go unheeded.

"And we would like you to understand that, so soon as the diamonds are restored to us, you will be free to go, and to do, and say exactly what you please, but that you will continue to be our prisoner till they are."

"If my freedom is dependent on my fulfilling the conditions which you would seek to impose, I shall continue to be what you call your prisoner until I die; but, as it happens, my freedom is contingent on nothing of the sort, as you will find."

"We would desire, also, Mr. Paxton, that you should be under no delusion. It is far from being our intention that what, as you put it, we call your imprisonment should be a period of pleasant probation; on the contrary, we intend to make it as uncomfortable as we can--which, believe me, is saying not a little."

"That, while I am at your mercy, you will behave in a cowardly and brutal fashion I have no doubt whatever."

"More. We have no greater desire than you have yourself that you should continue to be, what we call, our prisoner. With a view, therefore, to shortening the duration of your imprisonment we shall leave no stone unturned--even if we have to resort to all the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition--to extort from you the things which we require."

Paxton laughed--shortly, dryly, scornfully.

"I don't know if your intention is to be impressive; if it is, I give you my word that you don't impress me a little bit. Your attempts to wrap up your rascality in fine-sounding phrases strike me as being typical of the sort of man you are."

"Mr. Paxton, before we come to actual business, let me advise you--and, believe me, in this case my advice is quite unprejudiced--not to treat us to any more of this kind of talk! Can't you realise that it is not for counters we are playing? That men of our sort, in our position, are not likely to stick at trifles? That it is a case of head you lose, tails we win--for, while it is obviously a fact that we have nothing we can lose, it is equally certainly a fact that there is nothing you can gain? So learn wisdom; be wise in time; endeavour to be what I would venture to call conformable. Be so good as to give me your close attention. I should be extremely obliged, Mr. Paxton, if you would give me an answer to the question which I am about to put to you. Where, at the present moment, are the Datchet diamonds?"

"I would not tell you even if I knew."

"You do know. On that point there can be no room for doubt. We mean to know, too, before we've done with you. Is that your final answer?"

"It is."

"Think again."

"Why should I think?"

"For many reasons. I will give still another chance; I will repeat my question. Before you commit yourself to a reply, do consider. Tell me where, at the present moment, are the Datchet diamonds?"

"That I will never tell you."

Mr. Lawrence made a movement with his hands which denoted disapproval.

"Since you appear to be impervious to one sort of reasoning, perhaps you may be more amenable to another kind. We will do our best to make you." Mr. Lawrence turned to the man who had been addressed as Skittles. "Be so good as to put a branding-iron into the fire, the one on which there is the word 'thief.'"