"Can we find a box of safe-deposit at this hour of the night?" asked
M. Pigot, glancing at his watch. "It is almost one o'clock and a
half."

"That's easy in New York," said Grady. "We'll take 'em over to the
Day and Night Bank on Fifth Avenue. It never closes. Wait till I get
something to put 'em in."

He went out and came back presently with a small valise.

"This will do," he said. "Stow 'em away, and I'll call up the bank
and arrange for the box."

Simmonds and Pigot rolled up the packets carefully and placed them in
the valise, while I sat watching them in a kind of daze. And I
understood the temptation which would assail a man in the presence of
so much beauty. It was not the value of the jewels which shook and
dazzled me--I scarcely thought of that; it was their seductive
brilliance, it was the thought that, if I possessed them, I might
take them out at any hour of the day or night and run my fingers
through them and watch them shimmer and quiver in the light.

"The Grand Duke Michael must have been considerably upset," remarked
Simmonds, who, throughout all this scene, had lost no whit of his
serenity of demeanour.

"He has been like a madman," said M. Pigot, smiling a little at
Simmonds's unemotional tone. "These jewels are a passion with him; he
worships them; he never has parted with them, even for a day; where