"
"Indeed, sir," said Harry, "this is all a dreadful misconception;
and if you will go with me to Sir Thomas Vandeleur's in Eaton
Place, I can promise that all will be made plain. The most upright
person, as I now perceive, can be led into suspicious positions."
"My little man," replied the gardener, "I will go with you no
farther than the station-house in the next street. The inspector,
no doubt, will be glad to take a stroll with you as far as Eaton
Place, and have a bit of afternoon tea with your great
acquaintances. Or would you prefer to go direct to the Home
Secretary? Sir Thomas Vandeleur, indeed! Perhaps you think I
don't know a gentleman when I see one, from a common run-the-hedge
like you? Clothes or no clothes, I can read you like a book. Here
is a shirt that maybe cost as much as my Sunday hat; and that coat,
I take it, has never seen the inside of Rag-fair, and then your
boots - "
The man, whose eyes had fallen upon the ground, stopped short in
his insulting commentary, and remained for a moment looking
intently upon something at his feet. When he spoke his voice was
strangely altered.
"What, in God's name," said he, "is all this?"
Harry, following the direction of the man's eyes, beheld a
spectacle that struck him dumb with terror and amazement. In his
fall he had descended vertically upon the bandbox and burst it open
from end to end; thence a great treasure of diamonds had poured
forth, and now lay abroad, part trodden in the soil, part scattered
on the surface in regal and glittering profusion.
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