should he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds?
Would the bribe for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum
he could obtain by selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not;
and therefore, having the diamonds, it would have been far more to his
advantage to keep them than to stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill
up the space where the case with the treaty had lain. There would not
have been time yet for the real diamonds to have been copied in
Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a theory that the
stones given me might be false.

Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to
watch and be near me, why hadn't he waited to see what I would do, where
I would go, instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and
trusting to such an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it
with him? Even if the three men had been in some obscure way playing
into each others' hands, I could not see how their game had been
arranged to catch me.

Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed
yet since I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the
railway-station. Though I could not understand any reason for his
tricking me, still I told myself that nobody else could have done it,
and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du Nord. There I might
still be able to find some trace of the little man and of my two other
fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn where
they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen
treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by
the Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I
was ready to make use of it if necessary.