tremendously taken with her, and so at Liverpool she quite calmly broke
her engagement with the old man and fulfilled a new engagement she had
made with the young man by promptly marrying him--special license, I am
told. Old Briggs has therefore a new typewriting machine on his hands,
and so I was going to propose to you that you take the place of the
Chicago Pinkerton person. Briggs has become so disgusted with all these
detective women that he abandoned the idea of sending a female detective
with the machine, and doesn't imagine that whoever is sent will be
either a detective or a newspaper woman. I was introduced to him the
other day by one of those lucky chances which sometimes put interesting
items of news in our way, and he told me the whole story, requesting me
to recommend someone who wrote shorthand and understood the typewriter.
I am to dine with him this evening, and I shall cordially recommend you.
I may say that Briggs has gone to that celebrated London detective Mr.
Cadbury Taylor, and has engaged him to solve the diamond mystery. So
you see you will have a clear field. If you can leave for the castle
to-morrow night, you may have the pleasure of Mr. Cadbury Taylor's
company. He isn't visiting the castle, but goes straight to Vienna; so
if you work your cards rightly, you can be in the same carriage with
him as far as Munich, and during that time you may find out perhaps what
he thinks about the case. I know only this much about his theory, and
that is he thinks the right place to begin is in Vienna, where some, at
least, of the stones are supposed to have been pawned."

"Oh, this is a delightful case, and I shall enjoy it. Has there been
anything published yet with reference to the robbery?"

"Not a word; nobody knows anything about it, except the Prince and
Princess, Briggs, myself and yourself, and perhaps one or two of the
servants in the castle--oh, yes, and Cadbury Taylor."