and noting little things, but without any definite views as to any
ulterior benefit that might accrue to him therefrom. Perhaps there was
some vague idea floating in his mind that Fortune, who had served him so
many kind turns in years gone by, might befriend him once again in this
matter--might point out to him the wished-for clue, and indicate by what
means he could secure the Diamond for his own.

The magnitude of the temptation dazzled him. Captain Ducie would not
have picked your pocket, or have stolen your watch, or your horse, or
the title-deeds of your property. He had never put another man's name to
a bill instead of his own. You might have made him trustee for your
widow or children, and have felt sure that their interests would have
been scrupulously respected at his hands. Yet with all this--strange
contradiction as it may seem--if he could have laid surreptitious
fingers on M. Platzoff's Diamond, that gentleman would certainly never
have seen his cherished gem again. But had Platzoff placed it in his
hands and said, "Take this to London for me and deposit it at my
bankers'," the commission would have been faithfully fulfilled. It
seemed as if the element of mystery, of deliberate concealment, made all
the difference in Captain Ducie's unspoken estimate of the case.
Besides, would there not be something princely in such a theft? You
cannot put a man who steals a diamond worth a hundred and fifty thousand
pounds in the category of common thieves. Such an act verges on the
sublime.

One of the things seen and noticed by Captain Ducie was the absence,
through illness, of the mulatto, Cleon, from his duties, and the
substitution in his place of a man whom Ducie had never seen before.
This stranger was both clever and obliging, and Platzoff himself
confessed that the fellow made such a good substitute that he missed