so I suggested that this attempt to steal the Czarina's necklace might
be only the first of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous
gang, and that I might still be in danger.

"I winked at the Chief and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice
together in a saloon car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve
plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way. We
marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was
stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and
delivered the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old
Ambassador was immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I
had been made the object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that
his Imperial Majesty would not prove ungrateful.

"I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of
the Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him
enough Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So,
though he never caught the woman, he received his just reward."

The Queen's Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him
in some embarrassment.

"But the worst of it is," he added, "that the story must have got
about; for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a
cigar-case and five excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation
the Czar sent me a gold cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And
I don't know yet whether that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar
wanted me to know that he knew that I had been carrying the Czarina's
diamonds in my pigskin cigar-case. What do you fellows think?"