Page:Knaves of Diamonds.pdf/240

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221
AT THE SIGN OF THE "GOLDEN STAR."

Cape Town en route for England with a pair of hollow heels worth about £30,000 on her French boots, he thought he couldn't do better than try the same game himself.

Consequently, he broached the ever-welcome topic of a trip to Europe to his good lady, and she very naturally fell in with it at once, and was all the more pleased when her husband, in the goodness of his heart, suggested that her sister, Miss Myra Schamyl, who was living with them, should go with her for company's sake. It was this piece of extra and quite unnecessary generosity that brought all the trouble about.

A few days before the time fixed for Mrs. Herman's departure, her husband was called away on quite legitimate business to the then recently opened Jägersfontein mine, in the Free State, and as this business would keep him until after she had gone, he confided the precious packet to her care, the last thing