The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Diamond Cross Mystery, by Chester K.
Steele

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Title: The Diamond Cross Mystery
Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story

Author: Chester K. Steele

Release Date: June 25, 2005 [eBook #16127]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIAMOND CROSS MYSTERY***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE DIAMOND CROSS

Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story

by

CHESTER K. STEELE

Author of "The Mansion of Mystery," etc.

International Fiction Library
Cleveland New York
Press Of
The Commercial Bookbinding Co.
Cleveland

1918

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. The Ticking Watch
II. King's Dagger
III. The Fisherman
IV. Spotty
V. Amy's Appeal
VI. Grafton's Search
VII. The Colonel is Surprised
VIII. The Diamond Cross
IX. Indicted
X. The Death Watch
XI. No Alimony
XII. The Odd Coin
XIII. Singa Phut
XIV. The Hidden Wires
XV. A Dog
XVI. The Colonel Wonders
XVII. "A Jolly Good Fellow"
XVIII. Amy's Test
XIX. Word From Spotty
XX. In The Shadows
XXI. Swirling Waters
XXII. His Last Case

CHAPTER I

THE TICKING WATCH

There was only one sound which broke the intense stillness of the
jewelry shop on that fateful April morning. That sound was the ticking
of the watch in the hand of the dead woman.

Outside, the rain was falling. Not a heavy downpour which splashed
cheerfully on umbrellas and formed swollen streams in the gutters,
whence they rushed toward the sewer basins, carrying with them an
accumulation of sticks, leaves and dirt. Not a windy, gusty rain, that
made a man glad to get indoors near a genial fire, with his pipe and a
book.

It was a drizzle; a steady, persistent drizzle, which a half-hearted
wind blew this way and that, as though neither element cared much for
the task in hand--that of thoroughly soaking the particular part of the
universe in the neighborhood of Colchester and taking its own time in
which to do it.

Early in the unequal contest the sun had given up its effort