He’d anticipated Redfyre’s question and smiled. “I subjected myself to the same routine. I chose Private Sexton to conduct the search of my person and effects. Choosing Hardy, the only other officer, would have been the correct procedure, but might have been misconstrued by the men.

“Next up was a search in possible hiding places. The cabin was sparsely furnished, and it didn’t take me long. No result. I had the lieutenant perform the same duty and he, too, came up empty-handed.

“We were left with the possibility of a hiding place outdoors. In a wide, unbordered landscape that stretched in every direction from Boer to Boer! None of the men would have been so unwise as to go far alone in that place. I wouldn’t have done it myself. So we were left with the immediate vicinity. Not so easy. Between the river and the Kop lookout station, we were faced with a square mile of rock-strewn, channelled, porous ground where a thousand hidey-holes for a small number of diamonds were to hand.

“They all had convincing alibis for the previous day. Each swore that his pair had been in his sight all day when outside except when visiting the latrines . . . Yes, I checked the latrines! I was never convinced that the great outdoors, the unforgiving veldt would have been chosen as the deposition spot. They all hated and feared it. Scuttled in and out, looking over their shoulders whenever they had to leave the cabin. And for good reason. Anything buried would have to be put in at a good depth, even something small, or it would be dug up by some inquisitive snout. Herds of wild creatures ran right over the terrain, stirring up the dry as dust soil. Hard to remember exactly where you’d left a few ounces of diamonds in that wilderness. I wouldn’t have chosen it, and I didn’t think any of the men would have, either.”

“The Kop? The stables?”

“Both. No result. I even checked the horses’ hooves and the freshly reconstructed pouches in the Frenchman’s saddle. Clean. You know, Redfyre, I still think about that wretched cabin! I know in my bones those stones were there, close by. I’d been outwitted by one of my own men. One of the number had had the nerve, the selfishness and greed to take them and the cunning to conceal them. Somehow one of us got out of that situation with the stones and profited from them at a later time. Is still profiting from them after all these years! It rankles, Redfyre. Like a festering arrowhead in a wound. I left it behind when I went to India, tramped it away for years after that. But it’s there, still buried, polluting my blood.”

The handsome face was looking every moment increasingly like the noble but strained image of a medieval saint. Redfyre rang for Jenkins.