The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation

gone, Fullaway tapped at the door of the bedroom, summon

if she returns before my friend and I come up again, tell her that we shall present ourselves at five minutes to eleven. Come downstairs, Allerdyke," he proceeded, leading the way from the room.

essary arrangements, and went on to the smoking-room,

id. "What do

bluntly. "You did all that very well. I said nau

about me," said Fullaway, with a laugh. "I'm asking you what y

that manager chap," answered Allerdyke. "You rea

re. They were not in that box when she came here. Mademoiselle, my dear sir, was relieved of those jewels either on the steamer, as she crossed from, Christiania to Hull, or during the few hours she spent at the Hull hotel. The whole thing-the robbery from your cousin, the robbery from Made

Then, after lighting the cigar which Fullaway had

a big thing. You're figuring on its having been a ca

ngarde carried her pearls and diamonds in an innocent-looking rosewood box. My dear sir! you observed that I examined that box with seeming carelessness-in reality, I was looking at it with the eye of a trained observer. I am one of those people who, from having knocked about the world a lot, engaging

se?" suggest

of course, was to deceive Mademoiselle. You heard her say that the jewels were in her box at Christiania, and that she never opened the box until this evening here in Edinburgh? Very good-between here and Christiania somebody substituted the imitation box for the real one. Ah!-in all these great criminal operati

Fullaway. Damn all these jewels and things, in comparison with that!-it's that I'm after, I tell you again, and a thousand times again. And I'

y, with supreme assurance. "What the singing woman, as you call her, can tell us will most likely make all the difference in

reception by the audience which she had at first been so inclined to treat with scant courtesy had restored her to good humour, and

r that fat Weiss would have been no good. But I'm still wondering how you came to be here, and what this gentleman-Mr. Allerdyke, is it?-

d Allerdyke un

e since you left him at Hull, then?" he

s just a travelling acquaintance. All the same, I had cer

newspapers, then?"

ut myself in them," she answered,

gentleman's cousin, by the by-was found dead in his room at the hotel in Hull not so long after you quit

her lips; her large, handsome eyes dilated, her lips quivered a little. She turned a look

! Why, I was in his room that very night we reached Hull, having a talk on the business matter I ment

slowly produced a small packet, wrapped in tissue-paper, from his waistc

dropped your shoe-buckle there. I found it when I searched his ro

and watched her unwrap the paper. But there was not a sign of anything but a little surprised satisfaction in the p

proper name, you know-Zélie de Longarde is only my professional name. I didn't want to lose that buckle-it was part of a birth

. I knew you'd come to Edinburgh-found it out from that chauffeur who was driving you when you and I met at Howden the night before last, and so

at that means, of course. Why-you do

you were probably the last person who ever spoke to him alive. Now, you see, I'm a plain, blunt-spok

t some money-he advised me to put it into a development company in Norway, which is doing big things in fir and pine. I went into his room to look at some plans and papers-he gave me some prospectu

aluables that he had w

yke br

!" she answered. "

ou were on

aid. "Jewels?-why-what make

lue, and we believe that he was murdered for them-that's why," replied Allerdyke.

ening intently, leant forwa

Miss Lennard-we'll drop the professional name and turn to the real one," he said, with a bow to the prima donna-"Miss Lennard here thi

hat I hadn't?" she ex

that both you and the dead man, James Allerdyke, were robbed on the

knife and fork and sat b

Hull that night she was met by a man who described himself as her brother. He was in a great state of agitation-he said he'd rushed up to Hull to meet her, to beg her to go straight with him to their

s the table and fille

and address, don't you? Let me have them at once, and within a coup