" According to Gager's
information, Smiler was at this moment a brokenhearted man, ranging
between mad indignation and suicidal despondency, because he had been
treated with treachery in some direction. Mr. Gager was as fully convinced
as Bunfit that the diamonds had not been in the box. There was bitter,
raging, heart-breaking disappointment about the diamonds in more quarters
than one. That there had been a double robbery Gager was quite sure; or
rather a robbery in which two sets of thieves had been concerned, and in
which one set had been duped by the other set. In this affair Mr. Smiler
and poor little Billy Cann had been the dupes. So far Gager's mind had
arrived at certainty. But then how had they been duped, and who had duped
them? And who had employed them? Such a robbery would hardly have been
arranged and executed except on commission. Even Mr. Smiler would not have
burdened himself with such diamonds without knowing what to do with them,
and what he should get for them. That they were intended ultimately for
the hands of Messrs. Harter & Benjamin, Gager almost believed. And Gager
was inclined to think that Messrs.
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