CHAPTER XXXIV. A CLEVER MOVE.

Balmayne's move had been a clever one, and quite worthy of a mind like his. He recognised at once that Bruce's presence there meant danger. If Maitrank, in the excitement of the moment, chose to speak out, all the delicately-laid plans would be ruined.

He must have the diamonds back again. The old man could never have proved that they had come back once more into Leona Lalage's possession by means of a clever plan, but he was in a position now to say and do a great deal of mischief. But for the accident to the motor, things would have been different.

But there was nothing to be gained by going back. With the diamonds stuffed in his pocket, Balmayne returned to the dining-room. Maitrank sat on the sofa with his head between his hands moaning to himself. He had slipped off his heavy sable-lined overcoat, for the atmosphere of the room was oppressive.

His keen intellect had not quite come back to him, he was still suffering from the effects of the drug. He had been robbed just at the moment when everything seemed to be going in his favour. His vanity was touched.

Balmayne picked up the coat and laid it on the table. There was just a dexterous motion and a flash of his white hands, then he smiled with the air of one who is perfectly and wholly satisfied with something.

"Are you better now?" he asked.

Maitrank looked up with a wolfish gleam in his eyes.

"I am getting to be myself again," he croaked. "You have got the better of me this time, but it will never happen again. Ah, you are keen and you are clever, but the old wolf is ever wiser than the young one. I have been robbed."

"You are pleased to say so," Balmayne said smoothly.

"I have been robbed, I tell you. What was the trick I know not yet, but I shall find out."

"You left this house all right with the diamonds in your possession," Balmayne went on; "you cannot deny that fact. We can find a policeman who will be able to testify to the fact that you went unmolested."

Maitrank groaned. He was still more or less childish over his loss.

"Where are the diamonds?" he asked. "Tell me that, rascal!"

"Taken from you by some prowling nightbird as you lay unconscious. Which pocket did you place them in?"

"In the breast pocket of my inner coat. Bah, why argue over it?"

"You would be prepared to swear that in a court of law?"

"Well, perhaps not," Maitrank admitted. "But I had them in my possession."

"Then search once more--look everywhere. You might have changed them from one pocket to the other quite unconsciously. Be quick, because I have sent for a doctor to examine you."

"Keep the doctor to yourself," Maitrank snapped. "I'm all right. See, there is nothing in any of my pockets. My overcoat could not----"

He paused with a dazed expression as he produced from his big coat a handful of what looked like streaming fire. He gave a glad cry, the cry of a mother who has found some child that she deemed to be lost. He carried the stones to his lips and kissed them.

"I must have changed them," he sobbed. "I changed them and forgot; perhaps I had them in my hands looking at the beauties."

"Bah, you grow old, you get senile," Balmayne said contemptuously. "You have had an experience tonight that should be a warning to you. Now put it to yourself. We try to rob you--you, above all men in the world, who hold us in the hollow of your hands. Surely you pay us a very poor compliment! Our cue is to conciliate you, to find other victims to pay what we owe you and keep you silent. Once you are satisfied you will never tell--you will enjoy the sport of seeing others bitten too well. But you keep a carriage in the future and have no more fits in the street."

Maitrank grinned in sinister fashion.

"You are a clever young man; without doubt you are a very clever young man," he said. "And perhaps I have been mistaken. And I am suspicious; I have good cause to be. One reads in books of honest men who are the souls of integrity. Ah! But then I have never met with such a one in business."

"And touching this doctor?" Balmayne asked.

"Go along with your doctor," said Maitrank now, in great good humour. "If you will have the goodness to call a cab I will get back to my hotel."

But Bruce knew nothing of this change of things. He was utterly puzzled. As he walked home he could make nothing of it. Hetty's story was too circumstantial to be anything but absolutely true. There must have been some strong reason for this change of part. Perhaps Lawrence could throw some light on it. He might even know the man Maitrank. At any rate he was on very friendly terms with Isaac Isidore, who would be sure to have the names of all the European capitalists at his fingers' ends.

Bruce put the whole thing resolutely out of his mind, and went to bed. It was not till after luncheon that he found time to see Lawrence, to whom he told Hetty's story and the strange scene he had witnessed the night before.

"This is a complication," Lawrence said, as he puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "It has no part in the original scheme for your destruction, which was founded on my lost skeleton novel. There is no doubt in my mind now that the Countess has made up her mind to get you under her thumb. So far I can follow her--indeed, I have followed her in a fashion that would startle that lady if she knew everything. But people of that kind have many irons in the fire, and what you tell me looks like one that has nearly burnt her fingers. Our game is to sift the incident, and try and turn it to advantage. I am going to show you some pretty sport presently connected with those diamonds. Also I am going to use them so that we shall get Maitrank on our side."

"I wish I was as sanguine as you are," said Bruce.

"I'm more," said Lawrence. "I'm certain I have gathered up pretty well all the cards by this time. Now you put on your hat and come with me. I'm going to have a few words with Isaac Isidore."