sent Gaffney down to bring up certain things from the car, and detained
the manager for a moment's conversation.

"I suppose you'd a fair lot of people come in last night from that
Christiania boat?" he asked.

"Some fifteen or twenty," answered the manager.

"Did you happen to see my cousin in conversation with any of them?"
inquired Allerdyke.

The manager shrugged his shoulders. He was not definitely sure about
that; he had a notion that he had seen Mr. James Allerdyke talking with
some of the _Perisco_ passengers, but the notion was vague.

"You know how it is," he went on. "People come in--they stand about
talking in the hall--groups, you know--they go from one to another. I
think I saw him talking to that doctor who's in there now with Dr.
Orwin--the man with the big beard--and to a lady who came at the same
time. There were several ladies in the party--the passengers were all
about in the hall, and in the coffee-room, and so on. There are a lot of
other people in the house, too, of course."

"It's this way," said Allerdyke. "I'm not at all satisfied about what
these doctors say, so far. They may be right, of course--probably are.
Still I want to know all I can, and, naturally, I'd like to know who the
people were that my cousin was last in company with. You never know what
may have happened--there's often something that doesn't show at first."

"There was--nothing missing in his room, I hope?" asked the manager with
professional anxiety.

"Nothing that I know of," answered Allerdyke. "My man and I have searched
him, and taken possession of everything--all that he had on him is in
that bag, and I'm going to examine it now. No--I don't think anything had
been taken from him, judging by what I've seen."

"You wouldn't like me to send for the police?" suggested the manager.

"Not at present," replied Allerdyke. "Not, at any rate, until these
doctors say something more definite--they'll know more presently,
no doubt. Of course, you've a list of all the people who came in
last night?"

"They would all register," answered the manager. "But then, you
know, sir, many of them will be going this morning--most of them are
only breaking their journey. You can look over the register whenever
you like."

"Later on," said Allerdyke. "In the meantime, I'll examine these things.
Send me up some coffee as soon as your people are stirring."

He unlocked the hand-bag when the manager had left him. It seemed to his
practical and methodical mind that his first duty was to make himself
thoroughly acquainted with the various personal effects which he and
Gaffney had found on the dead man. Of the valuables he took little
notice; it was very evident, in his opinion, that if James Allerdyke's
death had been brought about by some sort of foul play--a suspicion which
had instantly crossed his mind as soon as he discovered that his cousin
was dead--the object of his destroyer had not been robbery. James had
always been accustomed to carrying a considerable sum of money on him;
Gaffney's search had brought a considerable sum to light. James also wore
a very valuable watch and chain and two fine diamond rings; there they
all were. Not robbery--no; at least, not robbery of the ordinary sort.
But--had there been robbery of another, a bigger, a subtle, and
deep-designed sort? James was a man of many affairs and schemes--he might
have had valuable securities, papers relating to designs, papers
containing secrets of great moment; he was interested, for example, in
several patents--he might have had documents pertinent to some affair of
such importance that ill-disposed folk, eager to seize them, might have
murdered him in order to gain possession of them. There were many
possibilities, and there was always--to Allerdyke's mind--the
improbability that James had died through sudden illness.

Now that Marshall Allerdyke's mind was clearing, getting free of the
first effects of the sudden shock of finding his cousin dead, doubt and
uneasiness as to the whole episode were rising strongly within him. He
and James had been brought up together; they had never been apart from
each other for more than a few months at a time during thirty-five years,
and he flattered himself that he knew James as well as any man of James's
acquaintance. He could not remember that his cousin had ever made any
complaint of illness or indisposition; he had certainly never had any
serious sickness in his life. As to heart trouble, Allerdyke knew that a
few years previous to his death, James had taken out a life-policy with a
first-rate office, and had been passed as a first-class life: he
remembered, as he sat there thinking over these things, the
self-satisfied grin with which James had come and told him that the
examining doctor had declared him to be as sound as a bell. It was true,
of course, that disease might have set in after that--still, it was only
six weeks since he had seen James and James was then looking in a fit,
healthy, hearty state. He had gone off on one of his Russian journeys as
full of life and spirits as a man could be--and had not the hotel
manager just said that he seemed full of health, full of go, at ten
o'clock last night? And yet, within a couple of hours or so--according to
what the medical men thought from their hurried examination--this active
vigorous man was dead--swiftly and mysteriously dead.

Allerdyke felt--felt intensely--that there was something deeply strange
in all this, and yet it was beyond him, with his limited knowledge, to
account for James's sudden death, except on the hypothesis suggested by
the two doctors. All sorts of vague, half-formed thoughts were in his
mind. Was there any person who desired James's death? Had any one tracked
him to this place--got rid of him by some subtle means? Had--

"Pshaw!" he muttered, suddenly interrupting his train of thought, and
recognizing how shapeless and futile it all was. "It just comes to
this--I'm asking myself if the poor lad was murdered! And what have I to
go on? Naught--naught at all!"

Nevertheless, there were papers before him which had been taken from
James's pocket; there was the little journal or diary which he always
carried, and in which, to Allerdyke's knowledge, he always jotted down
a brief note of each day's proceedings wherever he went. He could
examine these, at any rate--they might cast some light on his cousin's
recent doings.

He began with the diary, turning over its pages until he came to the date
on which James had left Bradford for St. Petersburg. That was on March
30th. He had travelled to the Russian capital overland--by way of Berlin
and Vilna, at each of which places he had evidently broken his journey.
From St. Petersburg he had gone on to Moscow, where he had spent the
better part of a week. All his movements were clearly set out in the
brief pencilled entries in the journal. From Moscow he had returned to
St. Petersburg; there he had stayed a fortnight; thence he had journeyed
to Revel, from Revel he had crossed the Baltic to Stockholm; from
Stockholm he had gone across country to Christiania. And from Christiania
he had sailed for Hull to meet his death in that adjacent room where the
doctors were now busied with his body.

Marshall Allerdyke, though he had no actual monetary connection with
them, had always possessed a fairly accurate knowledge of his cousin's
business affairs--James was the sort of man who talked freely to his
intimates about his doings. Therefore Allerdyke was able to make out from
the journal what James had done during his stay at St. Petersburg, in
Moscow, in Revel, and in Stockholm, in all of which places he had irons
of one sort or another in the fire. He recognized the names of various
firms upon which James had called--these names were as familiar to him as
those of the big manufacturing concerns in his own town. James had been
to see this man, this man had been to see James. He had dined with such
an one; such an one had dined with him. Ordinarily innocent entries, all
these; there was no subtle significance to be attached to any of them:
they were just the sort of entries which the busy commercial man, engaged
in operations of some magnitude, would make for his own convenience.

There was, in short, nothing in that tiny book--a mere,
waistcoat-pocket sort of affair--which Allerdyke was at a loss to
understand, or which excited any wonder or speculation in him: with one
exception. That exception was in three entries: brief, bald, mere
lines, all made during James's second stay--the fortnight period--in
St. Petersburg. They were:--

April 18: Met Princess.

April 20: Lunched with Princess.

April 23: Princess dined with me.

These entries puzzled Allerdyke. His cousin had been going over to Russia
at least twice a year for three years, but he had never heard him mention
that he had formed the acquaintance of any person of princely rank. Who
was this Princess with whom James had evidently become on such friendly
terms that they had lunched and dined together? James had twice written
to him during his absence--he had both letters in his pocket then, and
one of them was dated from St. Petersburg on April 24th, but there was no
mention of any Princess in either. Seeking for an explanation, he came to
the conclusion that James, who had a slight weakness for the society of
ladies connected with the stage, had made the acquaintance of some
actress or other, ballet-dancer, singer, artiste, and had given her the
nickname of Princess.

That was all there was to be got from the diary. It amounted to
nothing. There were, however, the loose papers. He began to examine
these methodically. They were few in number--James was the sort of man
who never keeps anything which can be destroyed: Allerdyke knew from
experience that he had a horror of accumulating what he called rubbish.
These papers, fastened together with a band of india-rubber, were all
business documents, with one exception--a letter from Allerdyke himself
addressed to Stockholm, to wait James's arrival. There were some
specifications relating to building property; there was a schedule of
the timber then standing in a certain pine forest in Sweden in which
James had a valuable share; there was a balance-sheet of a Moscow
trading concern in which he had invested money; there were odds and ends
of a similar nature--all financial. From these papers Allerdyke could
only select one which he did not understand, which conveyed no meaning
to him. This was a telegram, dispatched from London on April 21st, at
eleven o'clock in the morning. He spread it out on the table and slowly
read it:--

"To _James Allerdyke_, _Hotel Grand Monarch_, _St. Petersburg_.

"Your wire received. If Princess will confide goods to your care to
personally bring over here have no doubt matter can be speedily and
satisfactorily arranged. Have important client now in town until middle
May who seems to be best man to approach and is likely to be a generous
buyer.

"FRANKLIN FULLAWAY, Waldorf Hotel, London."

Here was another surprise: Allerdyke had never in his life heard James
mention the name--Franklin Fullaway. Yet here Mr. Franklin Fullaway,
whoever he might be, was wiring to James as only a business acquaintance
of some standing would wire. And here again was the mention of a
Princess--presumably, nay, evidently, the Princess to whom reference was
made in the diary. And there was mention, too, of goods--probably
valuable goods--to be confided to James's care for conveyance to
England, to London, for sale to some prospective purchaser. If James had
brought them, where were they? So far as Allerdyke had ascertained,
James had no luggage beyond his big suitcase and the handbag which now
stood on the table before his own eyes--he was a man for travelling
light, James, and never encumbered himself with more than indispensable
necessities. Where, then--

A tap at the door of the sitting-room prefaced the entry of the two
medical men.

"We heard from the manager that you were in this room, Mr. Allerdyke,"
said Dr. Orwin. "Well, we made a further examination of your relative,
and we still incline to the opinion expressed already. Now, if you
approve it, I will arrange at once for communicating with the Coroner,
removing the body, and having an autopsy performed. As Dr. Lydenberg has
business in the town which will keep him here a few days, he will join
me, and it will be more satisfactory to you, no doubt, if another doctor
is called--I should advise the professional police surgeon. If you will
leave it to me--"

"I'll leave everything of that sort to you, doctor," said Allerdyke. "I'm
much obliged to both of you, gentlemen. You understand what I'm anxious
about?--I want to be certain--certain, mind you!--of the cause of my
cousin's death. Now you speak of removing him? Then I'll just go and take
a look at him before that's done."

He presently locked up his rooms, leaving the hand-bag there, also
locked, and went alone to the room in which James lay dead. Most folks
who knew Marshall Allerdyke considered him a hard, unsentimental man,
but there were tears in his eyes as he stooped over his cousin's body and
laid his hand on the cold forehead. Once more he broke into familiar,
muttered speech.

"If there's been aught wrong, lad," he said. "Aught foul or underhand,
I'll right thee!--by God, I will!"

Then he stooped lower and kissed the dead man's cheek, and pressed the
still hands. It was with an effort that he turned away and regained his
self-command--and it was in that moment that his eyes, slightly blurred
as they were, caught sight of an object which lay half-concealed by a
corner of the hearth-rug--a glittering, shining object, which threw back
the gleam of the still burning electric light. He strode across the room
and picked it up--the gold buckle of a woman's shoe, studded with real,
if tiny, diamonds.




CHAPTER IV

MR. FRANKLIN FULLAWAY


Allerdyke carried his find away to his own room and carefully examined
it. The buckle was of real gold; the stones set in it were real diamonds,
small though they were. He deduced two ideas from these facts--one, that
the owner was a woman who loved pretty and expensive things; the other,
that she must have a certain natural carelessness about her not to have
noticed that the buckle was loose on her shoe. But as he put the buckle
safely away in his own travelling bag, he began to speculate on matters
of deeper import--how did it come to be lying there in James Allerdyke's
room? How long had it been lying there? Had its owner been into that
room recently? Had she, in fact, been in the room since James Allerdyke
took possession of it on his arrival at the hotel?

He realized the possibility of various answers to these questions. The
buckle might have been dropped by a former occupant of the room. But was
that likely? Would an object sparkling with diamonds have escaped the
eyes of even a careless chambermaid? Would it have escaped the keener
eyes of James Allerdyke? Anyhow, that question could easily be settled by
finding out how long that particular room had been unoccupied before
James was put into it. A much more important question was--had the owner
of the buckle been in the room between nine o'clock of the previous
evening and five o'clock that morning? Out of that, again, rose certain
supplementary questions: What had she been doing there? And most
important of all--who was she? That might possibly be solved by an
inspection of the hotel register, and after he had drunk the coffee which
was presently brought up to him, Allerdyke went down to the office to set
about that necessary, yet problematic, task.

As he reached the big hall on the ground floor of the hotel, the manager
came across to him, displaying a telegram.

"For your cousin, sir," he announced, handing it over to Allerdyke.
"Just come in."

Allerdyke slowly opened the envelope, and as he unfolded the message,
caught the name Franklin Fullaway at its foot--

"Let me know what time you arrive King's Cross to-day and I will meet
you, highly important we should both see my prospective client at once."

This message bore the same address which Allerdyke had found in the
telegram discovered in James's pocket-book--Waldorf Hotel--and he
determined to wire Mr. Franklin Fullaway immediately. He sat down at a
writing-table in the hall and drew a sheaf of telegraph forms towards
him. But it was not easy to compose the message which he wished to send.
He knew nothing of the man to whom he must address it, nothing of his
business relations with James; he had no clear notion of what the present
particular transaction was, nor how it might be connected with what had
just happened. After considerable thought he wrote out a telegram of some
length, and carried it himself to the telegraph office in the station
outside:--

"To _Franklin Fullaway, Waldorf Hotel, London_.

"Your wire to James Allerdyke opened by undersigned, his cousin. James
Allerdyke died suddenly here during night. Circumstances somewhat
mysterious. Investigation proceeding. Have found on body your telegram to
him of April 21. Glad if you can explain business referred to therein, or
give any other information about his recent doings abroad.

"From MARSHALL ALLERDYKE, Station Hotel, Hull."

It was by that time eight o'clock, and the railway station and the hotel
had started into the business of another day. There were signs that
people who had stayed in the hotel over-night were about to take their
departure by early trains, and Allerdyke hastened back to the office to
look over the register--he was anxious to know who and what the folk were
who had been near and about his cousin in his last hours. But a mere
glance at the big pages showed him the uselessness of his task. There
were some seventy or eighty entries, made during the previous twenty-four
hours; it was impossible to go into the circumstances of each. He turned
with a look of despair to the manager at his elbow.

"Nothing much to be made out of that!" he muttered. "Still--which are the
people who came off the _Perisco_ last night?"

The manager summoned a clerk; the clerk indicated a sequence of entries,
amongst which Allerdyke at once noticed the name of Dr. Lydenberg. The
rest were, of course, unfamiliar to him.

"There was a lady here last night, who, according to your night-porter,
changed her mind about staying, and set off in a motor-car about
midnight," observed Allerdyke. "Which is she, now, in this lot?"

The clerk instantly pointed to an entry, made in a big, dashing,
artistic-looking handwriting.

"That," he answered. "Miss Celia Lennard--Number 265."

Two numbers away from James Allerdyke's room--Number 263! The inquirer
pricked his ears.

"It was she who went off in the middle of the night," continued the
clerk. "She pestered me with a lot of questions as to how she could get
North--to Edinburgh. That would be about eleven o'clock. I told her she
couldn't get a train until morning. I saw her going upstairs just before
I went off duty--soon after eleven. It seems, according to the
night-porter--"

"I know--he told me," said Allerdyke, interrupting him. "He got her a
car, she wanted to be driven to some station on the Great Northern main
line--I met her on the road at two-thirty. I suppose the driver of that
car can be found?--he'll have returned by this, I should think."

"Oh, you can find him all right," answered the clerk. "The car was got
from a garage close by."

Allerdyke jotted down the name of the garage in his pocket-book, and
proceeded to make further inquiries about his cousin's movements on the
previous night. He interviewed various hotel servants--waiters,
chambermaids, porters, all could tell him something, and the sum total of
what they could tell amounted, for all practical purposes, to next to
nothing. James Allerdyke had come to the hotel just as several other
people had come. He had been served with a light supper in the
coffee-room; he had been seen chatting with one or two people in the
lounge and in the smoking-room; a chambermaid had seen him in his own
room--according to all these people there was nothing in his appearance
or his behaviour that was out of the common, and all agreed that he
looked very well.

The manager, who accompanied Allerdyke in his round of these inquiries,
glanced at him with a puzzled expression when they came to an end.

"Of course, sir, if you would like the police to be summoned," he
suggested for the second time. "Perhaps--"

"No--not yet!" answered Allerdyke. "I daresay they'll have to be called
in; indeed, I suppose it's absolutely necessary, because of the inquest,
but I'll wait until I hear what these doctors have to say, and, besides
that, I want to get some news from London. It's a queer business
altogether, and if there has been any foul play, why"--he paused and
looked round at the people who were passing in and out of the hall, in a
corner of which he and the manager were standing--"we can't hold up all
these folk and ask 'em if they know anything, you know," he added, with a
grim smile.

"That's the devil of it! If there has, as I say, been aught
wrong--murder, to put it plainly--why, the criminal or criminals may
already be off or going off now, amongst these people, and I can't
stop them. In a few hours they may be where nobody can find
them--don't you see?"

The manager did see, and shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of
helplessness. Again he could only suggest expert help from the
police--but this time he added to his suggestion the remark that he
understood there was nothing for the police to take hold of--no clue, no
signs of foul play.

"Not yet," agreed Allerdyke. "But--there may be. Well, I'm afraid that
register is no good. It's meaningless. A list of names conveys
nothing--except for future reference. For the present we must wait.
But--in any way you can--keep your eyes open. There's one thing you can
do--there was a lady in here last night who took Room 265 and left it at
midnight to go away in a motor-car which your night-porter got for her. I
particularly want to see the chambermaid who attended that lady. Let me
see her privately--I've a question to ask her."

"She shall be sent up to your sitting-room as soon as I've found her,"
responded the manager. "This is the servants' breakfast-hour, but--"

"Send her up there after nine o'clock," said Allerdyke. "In the meantime
I've another inquiry to make elsewhere."

He found Gaffney and sent him round to the garage from which Miss Celia
Lennard had obtained her midnight car, with instructions to find the
chauffeur who had driven her, and to get from him what information he
could as to her movements subsequent to the rencontre at Howden.

"Don't excite his suspicions," said Allerdyke, "but pump him for any news
he can give you. I want to know what became of her."

Gaffney speedily returned, fully informed of Miss Lennard's movements up
to a certain point. The chauffeur had just got back, and was about to
seek the bed from which he had been pulled at one o'clock in the morning.
He had taken the lady to York--only to find that there was no train
thence to Edinburgh until after nine o'clock. So she had turned into the
Station Hotel at York, to wait, and there he had left her.

There was little of importance in this, but it seemed to indicate that
Miss Lennard was certainly about to travel North, and that her hurried
departure from the hotel was due to a genuine desire to reach her
ultimate destination as speedily as possible. While Allerdyke was
wondering if it would be worth while to follow her up, merely because she
had been a fellow-passenger with his cousin, the manager came to him with
another telegram.

"That lady we were talking about," he said, laying the telegram before
Allerdyke, "has just sent me this. I thought you'd like to see it as you
were asking about her."

Allerdyke saw that the message was addressed to the manager, and had been
dispatched from York railway station three-quarters of a hour previously.

"Please ask chambermaid to search for diamond shoe-buckle which I believe
I lost in your hotel last night. If found send by registered post to Miss
Lennard, 503_a_, Bedford Court Mansions, London."

Allerdyke memorized that address while he secretly wondered whether he
should or should not tell the manager that the missing property was in
his possession. Finally he determined to keep silence for the moment, and
he handed back the message with an assumption of indifference.

"I should think a thing of that sort will soon be found," he observed.
"Look here--never mind about sending that chambermaid to me just now;
I'll see her later. I'm going to breakfast."

He wondered as he sat in the coffee-room, eating and drinking, if any of
the folk about him knew anything about the dead man whose body had been
quietly taken away by the doctors while the hotel routine went on in its
usual fashion. It seemed odd, strange, almost weird, to think that any
one of these people, eating fish or chops, chatting, reading their
propped-up newspapers, might be in possession of some knowledge which he
would give a good deal to appropriate.

Of one fact, however, he was certain--that diamond buckle belonged to
Miss Celia Lennard, and she lived at an address in London which he had by
that time written down in his pocket-book. And now arose the big (and, in
view of what had happened, the most important and serious) question--how
had Miss Celia Lennard's diamond buckle come to be in Room Number 263?
That question had got to be answered, and he foresaw that he and Miss
Lennard must very quickly meet again.

But there were many matters to be dealt with first, and they began to
arise and to demand attention at once. Before he had finished breakfast
came a wire from Mr. Franklin Fullaway, answering his own:--

"Deeply grieved and astonished by your news. Am coming down at once, and
shall arrive Hull two o'clock. In meantime keep strict guard on your
cousin's effects, especially on any sealed package. Most important this
should be done."

This message only added to the mass of mystery which had been thickening
ever since the early hours of the morning. Strict guard on James's
effects--any sealed package--what did that mean? But a very little
reflection made Allerdyke come to the conclusion that all these vague
references and hints bore relation to the possible transaction mentioned
in the various telegrams already exchanged between James Allerdyke and
Franklin Fullaway, and that James had on him or in his possession when he
left Russia something which was certainly not discovered when Gaffney
searched the dead man.

There was nothing to do but to wait: to wait for two things--the result
of the medical investigation, and the arrival of Mr. Franklin Fullaway.
The second came first. At ten minutes past two a bustling,
quick-mannered American strode into Marshall Allerdyke's private
sitting-room, and at the instant that the door was closed behind him
asked a question which seemed to burst from every fibre of his being--

"My dear sir! Are they safe?"




CHAPTER V

THE NASTIRSEVITCH JEWELS


Allerdyke, like all true Yorkshiremen, had been born into the world with
a double portion of caution and a triple one of reserve, and instead of
answering the question he took a leisurely look at the questioner. He saw
before him a tall, good-looking, irreproachably attired man of from
thirty to thirty-five years of age, whose dark eyes were ablaze with
excitement, whose equally dark, carefully trimmed moustache did not
conceal the agitation of the lips beneath. Mr. Franklin Fullaway, in
spite of his broad shoulders and excellent muscular development, was
evidently a highly strung, nervous, sensitive gentleman; nothing could be
plainer than that he had travelled from town in a state of great mental
activity which was just arriving at boiling-point. Everything about his
movements and gestures denoted it--the way in which he removed his hat,
laid aside his stick and gloves, ran his fingers through his dark, curly
hair, and--more than anything--looked at Marshall Allerdyke. But
Allerdyke had a habit of becoming cool and quiet when other men grew
excited and emotional, and he glanced at his visitor with seeming
indifference.

"Mr. Fullaway, I suppose?" he said, phlegmatically. "Aye, to be sure! Sit
you down, Mr. Fullaway. Will you take anything?--it's a longish ride from
London, and I daresay you'd do with a drink, what?"

"Nothing, nothing, thank you, Mr. Allerdyke," answered Fullaway,
obviously surprised by the other's coolness. "I had lunch on the train."

"Very convenient, that," observed Allerdyke. "I can remember when there
wasn't a chance of it. Aye--and what might this be that you're asking
about, now, Mr. Fullaway? What do you refer to?"

Fullaway, after a moment's surprised look at the Yorkshireman's stolid
face, elevated his well-marked eyebrows and shook his head. Then he edged
his chair nearer to the table at which Allerdyke sat.

"You don't know, then, that your cousin had valuables on him?" he asked
in an altered tone.

"I know exactly what my cousin had on him, and what was in his
baggage, when I found him dead in his room," replied Allerdyke drily.
"And what that was--was just what I should have expected to find.
But--nothing more."

Fullaway almost leapt in his chair.

"Nothing more!" he exclaimed. "Nothing more than you would have expected
to find! Nothing?"

Allerdyke bent across the table, giving his visitor a keen look.

"What would you have expected to find if you'd found him as I found him?"
he asked. "Come--what, now?"

He was watching the American narrowly, and he saw that Fullaway's
excitement was passing off, was being changed into an attentive
eagerness. He himself thrust his hand into his breast pocket and drew out
the papers which had been accumulating there since his arrival and
discovery.

"We'd best be plain, Mr. Fullaway," he said. "I don't know you, but I
gather that you knew James, and that you'd done business together."

"I knew Mr. James Allerdyke very well, and I've done business with him
for the last two years," replied Fullaway.

"Just so," assented Allerdyke. "And your business--"

"That of a general agent--an intermediary, if you like," answered
Fullaway. "I arrange private sales a good deal between European sellers
and American buyers--pictures, curiosities, jewels, antiques, and so on.
I'm pretty well known, Mr. Allerdyke, on both sides the Atlantic."

"Quite so," said Allerdyke. "I'm not in that line, however, and I don't
know you. But I'll tell you all I do know and you'll tell me all you
know. When I searched my cousin for papers, I found this wire from
you--sent to James at St. Petersburg. Now then, what does it refer to?
Those valuables you hinted at just now?"

"Exactly!" answered Fullaway. "Nothing less!"

"What valuables are they?" asked Allerdyke.

"Jewels! Worth a quarter of a million," replied Fullaway.

"What? Dollars?"

Fullaway laughed derisively.

"Dollars! No, pounds! Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, my dear
sir!" he answered.

"You think he had them on him?"

"I'm sure he had them on him!" asserted Fullaway. He, in his turn, began
to produce papers. "At any rate, he had them on him when he was in
Christiania the other day. He was bringing them over here--to me."

"On whose behalf?" asked Allerdyke.

"On behalf of a Russian lady, a Princess, who wished to find a purchaser
for them," replied the American promptly.

"In that case--to come to the point," said Allerdyke, "if my cousin
James had that property on him when he landed here last night and it
wasn't--as it certainly wasn't--on him when I found him this
morning---he's been robbed?"

"Robbed--and murdered that he might be robbed!" answered Fullaway.

The two men looked steadily at each other for a while. Then Allerdyke
laid his papers on the table between them.

"You'd better tell me all you know about it," he said quietly. "Let's
hear it all--then we shall be getting towards knowing what to do."

"Willingly!" exclaimed the American. He produced and spread out a couple
of cablegrams on which he laid a hand while he talked. "As I have already
said, I have had several deals in business with Mr. James Allerdyke. I
last saw him towards the end of March, in town, and he then mentioned to
me that he was just about setting out for Russia. On April 20th I
received this cable from him--sent, you see, from St. Petersburg. Allow
me to read it to you. He says. 'The Princess Nastirsevitch is anxious to
find purchaser for her jewels, valued more than once at about a quarter
of million pounds. Wants money to clear off mortgages on her son's
estate, and set him going again. Do you know of any one likely to buy in
one lot? Can arrange to bring over myself for buyers' inspection if
chance of immediate good sale. James Allerdyke.' Now, as soon as I
received that from your cousin I immediately thought of a possible and
very likely purchaser--Mr. Delkin, a Chicago man, whose only daughter is
just about to marry an English nobleman. I knew that Mr. Delkin had a
mind to give his daughter a really fine collection of jewels, and I went
at once to him regarding the matter. In consequence of my interview with
Mr. Delkin, I cabled to James Allerdyke on April 21st, saying--"

"This is it, no doubt," said Allerdyke, producing the message of the date
mentioned.

"That is it," assented Fullaway, glancing across the table. "Very well,
you see what I said. He replied to that at once--here is his reply. It
is, you see, very brief. It merely says, 'All right--shall wire details
later--keep possible buyer on.' I heard no more until last Thursday,
May 8th, when I received this cablegram, sent, you see, from
Christiania. In it he says: 'Expect reach Hull Monday night next. Shall
come London next day. Arrange meeting with your man. Have got all
goods.' Now those last four words, Mr. Allerdyke, if they mean anything
at all, mean that your cousin was bringing these valuable jewels with
him; had them on him when he cabled from Christiania. And if you did
not find them when you searched him--where are they? Two hundred and
fifty thousand pounds' worth!"

Allerdyke took the three cablegrams from his visitor and carefully read
them through, comparing them with the dates already known to him, and
with Fullaway's messages in reply. Eventually he put all the papers
together, arranging them in sequence. He laid them on the table between
Fullaway and himself, and for a moment or two sat reflectively drumming
the tips of his fingers on them.

"Who is this Princess Nastirsevitch?" he asked suddenly looking up.
"Royalty, eh?"