all goods!' Now, we can be reasonably sure of what he meant. He'd
got the Princess's jewels. Very well! Where are they?"

Allerdyke got to his feet, and, thrusting his hands in his pockets,
began to stride about the room. All this was not merely puzzling, but,
in a way which he could not understand, distasteful to him. Somehow--he
did not know why, nor at that moment try to think why--he resented the
fact that any one knew more about his dead cousin than he did. And he
began to wonder as he strode about the room how much this Mr. Franklin
Fullaway knew.

"Did my cousin James ever mention this Princess to you?" he suddenly
asked, stopping in his walk to and fro. "I mean--before he went over to
Russia this last time?"

"He just mentioned that he knew her--mentioned it in casual
conversation," answered Fullaway. "She and I being fellow Americans, the
subject interested me, of course. But--he only said that he had met her
in Russia."

"Aye, well," said Allerdyke musingly, "it's true he did go across to
Russia a good deal, and no doubt he knew folk there that he never told me
about."

"Well," he went on, throwing himself into his chair again, "what's
to be done? Do you honestly think that he had those things on him when he
came here last night? You do? Very well, then, he's been murdered by some
devil or devils who's got 'em! But how? And who are they--or who's
he--or--good Lord! it might be who's she?"

"Poisoned," said Fullaway. "That's my answer to your question of--how? As
to your other question--is there no clue to anything? you forget--I don't
know any details. I only know that he was found dead. Under what
circumstances?"

Allerdyke pulled his chair nearer to his visitor.

"I'd forgotten," he said. "I'll tell you the lot. See if you can make
aught out of it--they always say you Yankees have sharp brains. Try to
see a bit of daylight! So far it licks me."

He gave the American a brief yet full account of all that had happened
since his receipt of James Allerdyke's wireless message. And Fullaway
listened in silence, taking everything in, making no interruption, and at
the end he spoke quietly and with decision.

"We must find that woman--Miss Celia Lennard--and at once," he said.
"That's absolutely necessary."

"Just so," agreed Allerdyke. "But look here--I've been thinking that
over. Is it very likely that a woman who'd stolen two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds' worth of stuff from an hotel would wire