y
again and continued on its way. "Here I am, you see, Mr. Narkom, and,"
nodding toward the kit-bag, "prepared for any emergency, as they say in
the melodramas. It isn't often you give me a 'hurry call' like this, so
it's fair to suppose that you have something of unusual importance on
hand."

"If you said I had something positively amazing on hand you'd come a
deal nearer the mark, my dear fellow," returned the superintendent. "The
steel-room case was a fool to it for mystery, although it is not
entirely unlike it in some respects; for the thing happened behind
locked doors, and there's no clue to when, where, or how the assassin
got in nor the ghost of an explanation to be given as to how he got out
again. That is where the two cases are alike; but where they differ, is
the most amazing point; for the dickens of it is that whereas the steel
room was a stable and there were a few people on guard, this crime was
committed in a house filled with company. A reception was in progress,
yet not only was one of the best-known figures in London society done to
death under the very noses, so to speak, of her friends and
acquaintances, but jewels of immense value, jewels of historical
interest, in fact, were carried off in the most unaccountable manner. In
brief, my dear Cleek, the victim was the aged Duchess of Heatherlands;
the jewels that have vanished are those two marvellous blush-pink
diamonds known to the world of gem collectors as 'The Siva Stones.'
Surely, you whose knowledge seems unlimited"--noting the blank look on
Cleek's face--"must have heard of those divine gems?"

"Indeed, yes," replied Cleek. "I have good reason to know of them, as I
shall prove to you presently. My knowledge of the diamonds is so
complete that I can tell you at once that they weigh twenty-four and one
sixty-fifth carats each; that, apart from their marvellous and most
unusual colour, a delicate azalea pink, like the first flush of the
morning, they are, perhaps, the most perfectly cut and most perfectly
matched pair of diamonds in the world. What may be their earliest
history it is impossible to state. All that is positively known of them
is that they once formed two of the three eyes of the god Siva, and that
they were abstracted from the head of the idol during the loot of the
Hindu temples after Clive's defeat of Suraja Dowlah, in 1757. They were
subsequently brought to England, where, in course of time, they passed
into the possession of