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.
