"You mean to say, then, Mr. Kennedy," Margot demanded, "that while
Rawaruska was smuggling in the big diamond of which you speak someone
heard of it and deliberately _murdered_ her?"

"Not too fast," cautioned Craig. "Think again before you use those
words, 'deliberately murdered.' If it had been murder that was intended,
how much more surely it might have been accomplished by more brutal
methods--or by more scientific. No, murder was never deliberately
intended."

He stopped, as if to emphasize the point, then slowly began to
distribute to each of us one of the carbon handles I had seen him
adjusting to the peculiar little electrical instrument.

"Let me reconstruct the case," he hurried on, giving a final twist or
two to the instrument itself, now placed before him on a table, with its
dial face away from us. "Rawaruska had retired for the night. Where had
she placed the diamond? It would probably take a long search to find it.
Well, the twilight sleep was chosen because it was supposed to be a
safe and sure means to the end. Even if she retained some degree of
consciousness, she would forget what happened. That is partly the reason
for the treatment, anyhow,--the loss of memory.

"Someone believed this was a safe and sure anesthetic. First perhaps a
whiff of the secret service 'bad perfume' to insure that she would not
cry out--then an injection of narcophin and scopolamine--another--and
the twilight sleep. A few minutes, and Rawaruska was unconscious.

"Then came the search. Perhaps she was restless. Another injection
settled that. At last the great diamond was found. But the twilight
sleep meant not forgetfulness but death to Rawaruska!"

Craig paused. It was almost as if one could see the word picture of the
scene as he painted it.

"What was to be done? The diamond must be recut--anything to hide its
identity, at once, and at any cost. And Margot? The story of the
Arkansas diamond and the sale is a blind. The case is perfect!"

Kennedy raised his eyes for the first time from the study of the little
electrical machine before him, and caught the eye of Cecilie, holding
it, unwilling.

"Did you ever hear of the great diamond, the Invincible?" Kennedy
smashed out.

I felt that it might not have been exactly chivalrous, but it was
necessary.

Cecilie's breast, which had showed a wildly beating heart as Kennedy
told of how her mistress had died, was calmer now. Her air of surprise
at the mention of the