CHAPTER XXV. A CHECK.

"No you don't," said Lawrence coolly. "Of course, it would be a very dramatic finish to the night's adventure, but I can't permit it. Go easy."

Charlton gave up the struggle. Those jewels, the cause of all his misfortunes, had lain there at the bottom of the well where he had intended them to stay. He hated the very mention of them. Had not diamonds inspired some of the most awful crimes since crime began?

They should stay there for all time, those stones with the blood upon them, but now, when they were being carried off by the woman who had robbed him of all that life holds dear, Charlton's passion flared out.

He would have followed those people and demanded them. But Lawrence held him back until his passion was spent. He yielded suddenly.

"After all it matters little," he said.

"It matters a great deal," Lawrence replied. "You want your jewels back----"

"My dear sir, the first beggar in the street can have them for all I care."

"Well, you don't want those people to get them. Neither will they for long. It is all part of my little scheme. If you had dashed out just now you would certainly have caused a great sensation, and there would have been a great gap in the dazzling ranks of fashion, but you would have ruined my plans."

"But will those people be punished eventually?"

"Of course they will. But there are viler crimes than the theft of diamonds. There is the conspiracy to rob a good man of his good name, to make the lives of that man and the girl he is going to marry dark for the sake of a passing caprice. I tell you this has been done, and a murder has been committed in the doing of it. And I am going to get to the bottom of the foul tangle."

It was not the usual voice of Gilbert Lawrence that spoke. There was a dogged grimness about him that would have surprised his friends. "Let us light the gas and smoke here for a time," he said. "There is not the slightest chance of those people coming back, and there are no windows overlooking this one. I have a good deal to say to you."

Charlton made no objection. He was evidently in the company of a man who knew quite well what he was doing.

"I will be guided entirely by you," he said. "You tell me that that vile woman will be punished, and I believe you. Strange that she should be mixed up with the lives of people you care for also. You must have been sure of your ground to let her escape you tonight."

Lawrence flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"I am," he said. "See, I am familiar with her plot before she carried it out. As I told you before, the whole thing is founded on a novel of mine which has yet to be published. How she got the thing is a mystery. But she has got it. It could not possibly have been a coincidence."

"If you know where she lives----" Charlton began.

"My dear sir, I know who she is. From the very moment that Bruce told his strange story I felt pretty certain that the Spanish business was a disguise."

"But it is no disguise. My wife's companion was a Spanish blonde."

"Then during the time that woman was in your house she wore a wig. You may make yourself pretty clear on that point. The creature you saw tonight in the courtyard has no doubt passed at different times under many names, but to the world she is at present known as Countess Lalage."

"I have heard of her. But she is very rich."

"So most people think. To my mind she is a brilliant adventuress. With beauty and brains and audacity a woman like that never need want for money. Of course, the crash will come sooner or later, but meanwhile she is having a good time. But you are going to see my patience rewarded. A murder has been committed here, and that woman knows all about it. Out of that murder came the terrible charge that hangs over my friend Bruce, and she knows all about that. I know all about it, too, but knowing and proving are two very different things. It is a fight in the dark between us, but I am going to win at the finish."

"You wouldn't force her to confess?"

"Not a woman like that. Get her back to the wall and she will be dangerous. Bless the man, if she knew I was her antagonist she would not hesitate to ask me to dinner and poison me over one of her excellent dishes. When I strike I must strike her down to the ground. My lines are laid pretty carefully, and she is going into them one by one. She walked into one of them tonight."

"Did you know that she was coming here?"

"My dear sir, I was the means of letting her know the jewels were still in the well. She is very hard up for money--I found that out at her house the other night--and that is why I waited here this evening. She is playing out my story, you see. And she has gone off for the present with your diamonds."

"Which will be a powerful weapon in her hands."

Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket.

"You saw those people go off with the diamonds," he said. "You saw those gems flash and dazzle in the light of the lamp. I am going to give you a surprise now, and the surprise of our predatory friends will come later on. Your wife's gems were three rows of diamonds and a collar of the same set plain in silver."

"How did you know that?" Charlton asked.

Lawrence proceeded to unpack his parcel. Inside were two cases which he opened and exposed in the light of the flaming gas.

"Will you have the goodness to look at these," he asked.

Charlton did so. There was a blank surprise on his face.

"I should like to know what you make of them," said Lawrence.

"Amazing!" Charlton cried. "Why, these are my wife's diamonds, the real stones beyond doubt."