Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933

Out of the Shadows Steals a Strange Figure in a Red Sash and into the Africa Mystery Comes an Incredible New Development

Daniel “Flash” Horton was at the home of the Africas the night Benjamin Africa was murdered. Benjamin himself had summoned him. “Something mighty mysterious has been going on in this house,” Benjamin Africa had said over the phone to the young attorney. “There’s murder in the air.”

So Flash had said good night to his sister, Margy, and had gone to the strange house, where lived the giant adventurer, Africa; and his exotic Eurasian bride, Lotus; and the old witch, Minetta Africa, who hated her brother Benjamin’s bride; and the man, Wayne Cheseldine, who had followed Lotus from China, and Africa’s blond grand-niece, Bernice Hopper.

Benjamin Africa had told Flash of the beating he had given Cheseldine when the latter tried to persuade Lotus to run away from him. Benjamin also told Flash of the superstition that when a spot of blood appeared under the huge portrait of the first Benjamin Africa, and when the clock in the hall stopped, an Africa always died.

And the spot appeared, and the clock stopped, and Benjamin Africa was murdered, garroted with a piece of wire. There were few clues, but they all pointed to Lotus.

Flash notified Sheriff Alonzo Hegg. It was while he was waiting for the sheriff to arrive that he saw a man fleeing across the Africa lawn, caught him, and after a struggle brought him back to the house. Minetta Africa said to Flash, “That man came this morning to see my brother on some kind of secret business. He says his name is Harry Muroc.”

Chapter VIII Muroc’s Alibi

The sheriff’s whole air was one of brusque self-importance. His small blue eyes looked quickly about the room. His manner was that of a man of decision, of authority. This was, of course, Flash reflected, the opportunity of a lifetime to a man of Alonzo Hegg’s pompous character.

Having swiftly scrutinized the room, he looked for several seconds at the wire about the dead man’s neck, then said, in his somewhat booming voice, “Got any idea who did this, Dan?”

“Not yet.”

“Any clues?”

“Three,” Flash said. “Look here. This scratch across the desk may or may not be important. This paper may or may not have been dropped by the murderer. I think it was.”

“What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”

“A hairpin. It dropped out of his collar just now as I rolled him over. He was lying face down.”

Sheriff Hegg took the hairpin from Flash’s hand and held it close to the candles.

He grunted and said, “I guess this doesn’t leave much doubt about who did it, Dan. Have you questioned them?”

“Not yet.”

“Where’s that yaller girl?”

“In her room. She didn’t do this.”

“Don’t agree with you,” Sheriff Hegg said flatly. “There’s been plenty of rumors about that girl and this fellow from China who followed her here. It’s as clear as crystal to me without going a step farther. She killed him so she and that fellow from Hongkong could skip out together. We’ll just see about that!”

Flash saw the long, horselike face of the butler in the doorway.

“Tell Mrs. Africa to come to the sitting room,” Flash said. “And the servants, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

When the butler had gone, the sheriff said, “Where does this door go?”

“The sitting room. Miss Minetta, the man from Hongkong, and a suspicious character who says his name is Muroc are in there. I found Muroc hanging around outside on the terrace there a few minutes ago. He ran when I called. I grabbed him. He won’t talk.”

Sheriff Hegg was looking at him queerly. “I’ll make him talk. You say his name’s Muroc?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff opened the door and called into the room, “Hey! Is your name Muroc?” And to Flash, “Where can I talk to this fellow in private?”

“The music room across the hall.”

The sheriff strode into the sitting room and said to Mr. Muroc, “Come with me.”

Harry Muroc arose and followed him out into the hall. Flash remained in the study. He had no faith in Alonzo Hegg’s hair-trigger methods. Unless he was mistaken, Alonzo Hegg would promptly arrest Lotus Africa, and perhaps Cheseldine, as an accomplice.

Left alone, Flash resumed his investigation of the dead man. He came upon another puzzling discovery. Benjamin Africa’s fingernails were black. Less than an hour previously, Flash had particularly noticed how clean and well-cared for these nails were.

Flash took out and opened his pocket knife. His first supposition was that the black under the nails was dried blood. The point of the knife proved that it was not dried blood, but soot.

Benjamin Africa had left Flash in the north drawing room to get a gold necklace which he had bought as a gift for his wife. In the subsequent few minutes, he had been murdered. How had he acquired this soot under his fingernails?

Flash went through his pockets. The necklace was not upon the person of the dead man. Perhaps he had not had time to secure the necklace. Perhaps it was still in the desk. Flash went through the desk drawers carefully, thoroughly. The necklace was not there.

He next examined the fireplace, on the supposition that Benjamin Africa, in his death struggles, had scraped the soot under his fingernails there.

The side walls of the fireplace were free of soot — burned clean and bright by flames. Only the back wall was sooted. Flash searched it carefully, but found no evidences of scratches of any kind.

Sheriff Hegg had brusquely ordered Mr. Muroc across the hall and into the music room. But when the door was closed behind them, and when the sheriff had made sure that they had the room to themselves, his air of official brusqueness vanished.

He said, belligerently, “Muroc, what the hell’s been going on here?”

And the gentleman from New York answered lightly, “There seems to have been a murder, Sheriff.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Not a thing.”

“Now, look here,” the sheriff blustered. “This is murder. This man Africa was a prominent citizen — a millionaire. Important old family. The papers are going to raise a stink about it. And you’re going to get involved. If you have anything to say, you’d better say it.”

“What shall I say?” Muroc asked with his sardonic smile.

“Did you kill him?”

“Suppose I said yes?”

“Then you’re on one hell of a spot.”

“I disagree with you, Sheriff. I have a perfect alibi. Have you forgotten that I have a perfect alibi?”

“You can’t get away with that, Muroc,” the sheriff said angrily. “And it’s a lie. You were here in plenty of time to kill Benjamin Africa!”

“If it comes to an issue, however,” Muroc said coldly, “you’ll furnish me with an alibi. And you’re overlooking a point. It’s up to you to see that I’m not involved. If a charge of murder was pressed against me, you would lose an income that would make you independently wealthy in a very few years. I’m going to help you, but you’ll have to do as I say.”

“You’re admitting that you murdered him!”

The small black eyes studied him. “Sheriff, let’s not be emotional. Let’s use the brains God gave us. Let’s ask ourselves,” he said sarcastically, as if he were addressing a very young, very stupid child, “who is the most likely suspect? Lotus Africa!”

“Yeah,” the sheriff growled. “You planted that hairpin of hers on the old man!”

Muroc raised his thin black brows into twin arches. “The public,” he said, “is going to think she killed the old man so that she and this poor slob Cheseldine could run off — and spend the Africa millions. That’s what Miss Minetta thinks. Whatever you think, or whatever I think, the Chink girl is going to be the fall guy. You found the hairpin. You’ve got your story. Stick to it!”

The sheriff was pacing up and down, clasping and unclasping his hands. He looked worried.

“Okay, okay!” he exploded at last. “But what about Horton? He’s dangerous!”

Muroc’s hard mouth spread in a wolfish grin. A deep, strange light appeared in his little eyes.

“Don’t you worry about Mr. Horton,” he said softly.

Chapter IX “I Know She Killed Him”

Flash had finished his inspection of the fireplace when he heard the sheriff’s voice from the sitting room.

“Dan, we’re all ready. Let’s get down to business.”

Flash got up from his knees and went into the sitting room.

Lotus Africa had not yet come in, but everyone else was there. Cheseldine stood with his back to the window. Miss Minetta still sat in the rocking chair, with hands folded, staring implacably at the opposite wall. Bernice Hopper, pale and big-eyed, now stood behind her aunt’s chair with her hands on the back of it.

Harry Muroc was seated nearby, cleaning his fingernails with a gold-backed pocketknife.

Near the door, in a small, nervous group, were the servants: a horse-faced butler, an enormously fat, tall black woman, and a young woman dressed in black with a tiny white apron.

Sheriff Hegg looked importantly about the room. He said impatiently, “Where’s Mrs. Africa?”

There was a gleam of living red at the door and the Eurasian girl came in. Flash studied her sharply. There were no tears or trace of recent tears in her beautiful gem-like eyes. Once again, he was impressed by the unfathomable mystery, the bizarre, slender beauty of this girl.

She entered the room and walked to where Flash was standing. She stopped beside him and waited.

Sheriff Hegg clasped his hands behind him and jutted out his lower lip.

“You Mrs. Africa?” he barked.

“Yes.”

He looked at her shrewdly. He ran his little piggy eyes slowly from her face down the slim, graceful lines of her slender figure.

He said, in an oratorical voice, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, there is absolutely no question that right here in this very room is the man or the woman who killed Benjamin Africa. First of all, I’ll hear from any of you who have an opinion. How about you, Miss Minetta?”

Flash observed that Minetta Africa, thin-lipped, with spots of hectic color burning on her cheekbones, was sending malignant glances at the Eurasian girl.

“My brother,” the spinster said slowly, “knew that he was going to be killed. You’ve doubtless heard about the Africa tradition. When a man of our family is about to die, blood is always seen under the portrait of our ancestor. My brother saw a ghostly figure there last night — and found fresh blood!”

The Eurasian said softly, “My husband said nothing about it to me.”

“There were a great many things,” her sister-in-law coldly stated, “that he didn’t tell you.”

The Eurasian’s large, brilliant dark eyes studied Minetta Africa a moment, then she said, quietly, “I do not believe that a ghost killed my husband.”

The spinster licked her lips. She shot a look of venomous hatred at the girl in red. In her harsh, frigid voice, she said, slowly, “Sheriff, that woman standing there killed my brother!”

Miss Hopper uttered a small shriek. Flash watched Lotus Africa. And once again he was amazed at her poise, her perfect calm. Not a muscle in her face twitched.

The sheriff strode toward Minetta. “Have you any proof of it?”

“I don’t need proof. I know she killed him!”

“We want proof,” the sheriff said gruffly. “Did you see her go into the room where he died? Did you see her come out?”

“No,” Minetta said thinly. “But she did it. She did it to get his money, so she could run off with this man — this Cheseldine.”

“That’s a lie,” Cheseldine said.

The sheriff made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Now look here, folks. I won’t have arguments or wrangling. We’re gathered together here to find out who killed Benjamin Africa. One of you did it. If anybody knows anything about it, speak up — or I’ll have the whole kit and kaboodle of you taken down to jail.”

He turned almost savagely on the Eurasian girl. “What have you got to say for yourself?” he boomed.

“Take it easy,” Flash said.

The sheriff sent him a hot blue glance. “My boy, this is no time to take it easy. There’s been a murder committed. And I’m going to find out who did it. I asked you a question, Mrs. Africa. What have you to say for yourself?”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Oh, you don’t, eh?”

“No.” she said softly. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Where were you when it happened?”

“I have been in my room all evening except twice,” the girl answered in her musical, slurring voice. “Once I came to the foot of the stairs to speak to Mr. Horton when he came in. The second time I came when I heard all the noise — and found that my husband had been killed.”

“So that’s your story, is it?” Sheriff Hegg snapped.

“It is the truth.”

The sheriff came a little closer to her, thrusting out his red, wet underlip. In a menacingly low voice, he said, “Got anybody who can prove what you’re saying?”

“I was alone in my room all the time.”

The sheriff took a backward step. He plunged his hand into his coat pocket, but did not at once withdraw it.

“Mrs. Africa,” he said, “let me see one of your hairpins.”

Her large, dark eyes gazed at him, as if with bewilderment.

“My hairpins?” she whispered.

“Yes! A hairpin! One of the gadgets you hold your hair up with. Pull one of them out.”

The girl raised her slim white hands to her head. She took out a hairpin, and her blue-black hair came tumbling down about her shoulders, gleaming and glowing in the candlelight. It was lustrous, long, beautiful hair.

She held out in her hand a hairpin fashioned from some dark wood, the two tines joined by a golden mounting in which a little triangular fragment of jade was set.

The sheriff looked at it with an inverted smile. And Flash realized with finality that the mills of the gods were preparing to grind the Eurasian girl very fine indeed. He was watching her.

Not a vestige of her calm had deserted her. She was as poised, as imperturbable as ever. Or so she seemed to any searching eye. But it chanced that the elbow of the arm she was extending toward the sheriff was lightly touching Flash’s elbow. He was aware of the faintest of vibrations. The girl was shivering. And he knew that, despite her look of calm, she was terrified.

Convinced of her innocence, he suddenly felt coldly furious. He knew that the cards were being stacked against this girl. She, too, was aware of it. And she was like a bewildered and terrified young animal. It was as if these faces about her represented a circle of doom which was closing in on her, from which there was no escape.

Sheriff Hegg looked at the hairpin in her hand and said, “Is this the kind of hairpin you always use?”

She slightly inclined her head.

“Never use any other kind?” he asked, almost triumphantly.

“No.”

“Where do you get these hairpins?” he asked, his intention obviously being to prolong her agony and his own moment of triumph.

“They were given to me by a mandarin in Hongkong when I was a little girl.”

“You mean, they’re rare?”

“Yes.”

“Ever give any of them away?”

“No.”

Flash glanced at Minetta Africa, and he wondered how much she knew of where this was leading, for she was looking at the Eurasian girl with cold hatred, with a kind of awful greed.

The sheriff removed his hand from his pocket.

“This yours?” he softly asked, and produced the hairpin Flash had found.

The girl looked at it and nodded her lovely head.

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

“Where it dropped out of your hair,” Sheriff Hegg said triumphantly. “On the body of Benjamin Africa, after you killed him!”

Chapter X The Net of Suspicion

Miss Minetta uttered a thin, harsh exclamation of satisfaction. Flash glanced quickly about the room. Wayne Cheseldine was staring at the girl from his puffed purple eyes. Harry Muroc was looking up from his chair with a sardonic twinkle at the corner of his mouth. At the end of the room the servants were staring with large eyes. Flash noticed particularly the colored woman, presumably the cook. Her bulging eyes showed grotesque areas of white.

The young widow of Benjamin Africa was slowly shaking her head.

“That could not be,” she said. “I did not kill him.”

“Just a moment,” Flash said, and forced his voice to be judicially calm. “You’re wrong, Sheriff. Your assumption is wrong. I’m absolutely convinced this girl is innocent.”

“Yeah? Then explain this hairpin!”

“She dropped it when she came into the study and bent down to look at her dead husband. I was there. She was horrified. She gave a little scream and sprang up. It dropped then.”

The sheriff said peevishly, “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“We weren’t discussing the hairpin before.”

The sheriff looked at him. He did not say that Flash’s preposterous lie was a preposterous lie, but his eyes said that. He must have realized that Flash was determined to protect Lotus Africa. For Flash was determined to protect Lotus Africa. Flash was sure that the person who had killed her husband had placed that hairpin under his collar deliberately to attach suspicion to her. He was more than ever certain that she had not killed her husband.

“That,” the sheriff growled, “puts us just where we were before. Dan, you can help us. You’re Mr. Africa’s lawyer. Who stood to gain the most by his death?”

Reluctantly, Flash admitted, “Mrs. Africa.”

Minetta sharply spoke. “That isn’t true. His will leaves everything he owns, half to her and half to me!”

“No,” Flash said quietly. “It did, previous to about a month ago. He had me change it. The new will leaves two-thirds to Mrs. Africa and one-third to you, after a bequest for one hundred and fifty thousand is paid to Miss Hopper here, and some small bequests to servants.”

The old maid uttered a gasp of angry surprise.

“Wait a minute!” the sheriff snapped. “Mrs. Africa, did you know about that change?”

The beautiful girl in red nodded. “Yes. My husband told me.”

“So that you knew that if he died, if you killed him and weren’t caught, you would receive two-thirds of his estate!”

Flash said curtly, “Don’t phrase it like that. You have absolutely no proof that this girl killed him. Why not get on with your questioning of these other people?”

Wayne Cheseldine said, “Two people here certainly had a good enough motive for killing him — Miss Hopper and Miss Minetta!”

The sheriff wheeled on him. “Sure! And now that he’s dead, what are you and Mrs. Africa planning to do?”

The man from Hongkong answered stiffly, “I am going away.”

“I want to check these other people,” Flash said grimly. “Miss Minetta, where were you when your brother was killed?”

“In my room,” she snapped.

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff broke in, “Where was this blonde?”

“In the north drawing room with me,” Flash answered.

“I was in the music room,” Cheseldine said.

“Can any of you,” Sheriff Hegg asked, “prove that you were where you say you were?”

There was no answer to this.

“In other words,” he said, “not one of you except Miss Hopper has an alibi. And every one of you had a motive.” He walked over to Cheseldine. “Tell me, who was it beat you up.?”

“Mr. Africa.”

“What for?”

The man from Hongkong answered angrily, “It’s none of your damned business.”

Flash said, “Mr. Africa sent for me tonight in connection with it. Mr. Cheseldine was writing notes to Mrs. Africa, begging her to elope with him. Mr. Africa found one of these notes — and beat him up.” And as he said this, he remembered Cheseldine’s words, “Tell him, if we ever meet again, to watch out... I’ll kill him!”

Sheriff Hegg had folded his long thin arms on his chest and was glaring at the man from Hongkong.

“So you were in the music room, eh?”

“I was.”

“Who discovered the murder?” Miss Hopper burst out. “Ask him that!”

“I did,” Cheseldine said. “I heard a terrific thumping and banging across the hall. I ran out just before it stopped. It had seemed to come from the study. I went in there — and found him dead.”

“And you broke down and cried like a baby,” the sheriff said, sarcastically.

Miss Minetta broke in, “Maybe he helped plan it, but he didn’t do it. It was that woman who did it!”

“That’s my opinion,” Sheriff Hegg emphatically agreed. “Now, Mrs. Africa—”

“Just a moment,” Flash interrupted. “I’m sure that if Mr. Africa could say anything about it—”

Miss Minetta screamed, “If Benjamin could say anything about it, he’d say she killed him!”

“That’s enough of that,” Flash said sternly. “I know that Mr. Africa would want me to see that his wife’s interests were protected. They’re not being protected. You’re overlooking every angle of this case except hers. I’d like to hear from this mystery man I found skulking on the terrace.”

“Muroc’s the name,” said Mr. Muroc. He was trying to put a broken cigar together. The cigar had evidently been broken in halves when Flash had tackled him. But the jagged ends fitted. Mr. Muroc licked them with his tongue, and placed the refashioned cigar together with firm pressure, then inserted it in his mouth.

He said, “I’ve explained myself. I was taking a walk. When I came back to the house, I saw the light in Mr. Africa’s study and started to walk in through the window. I saw he was dead. Just then someone yelled, and I ran, thinking it was the murderer.”

Flash, watching him, saw intelligence flick from his little black eyes to Sheriff Flegg’s little blue eyes, and was conscious of mysterious undercurrents.

“That’s my story,” Muroc said, “and I’m going to stick to it.”

His insolence made Flash wonder, but not for long. It was instantly evident that the net was going to close about Lotus Africa, or Sheriff Hegg would know the reason why.

“Whether or not she dropped that hairpin,” he said, “is beside the point. Of everybody here, she had the most to gain by killing Mr. Africa. And here’s another angle: Whoever killed Mr. Africa was someone the old man trusted, or he would have prevented them from slipping that wire around his neck.”

Flash said immediately, “That’s too general. There isn’t a person in this house he wouldn’t have permitted near him. Even Cheseldine. It’s quite as likely he was taken by surprise. Anyone could have come up behind him through the window without his seeing them.”

The sheriff made an impatient gesture with his bony hands. “All right. Then let’s consider it from still another angle. If Mrs. Africa killed her husband, she must have come downstairs and gone into the study either by those casement windows or the hall doorway, or possibly through this connecting door right here. She might have gone in and out without being seen. On the other hand, someone might have seen her either going in or coming out.”

“Unless,” Flash said, “she stayed in her room, as she claims she did.”

A voice at the end of the room said thickly, “Ah seen her go in and Ah seen her come out.”

Flash and the sheriff simultaneously spun about. It was the cook who had spoken. They looked at the black woman as if they had never seen her before. She was a fat woman. A black woman. A very fat, very black woman. She was gigantic in a stiffly starched white dress. She dwarfed the butler and the chambermaid who stood beside her.

Sheriff Hegg walked rapidly down the room.

“You did?” he said, and almost purred.

“Yassuh.”

“What’s your name?”

“Blossom. Blossom Vickus.”

“And you say you saw Mrs. Africa go into the study and come out of the study?”

“Yassuh.”

“Where were you when this happened?”

In the interval before her reply, Flash heard Lotus Africa give a faint little sound, like a choked sob. He looked quickly at her. Her eyes were bright and clear. She was as poised, as calm as ever. Only her lips betrayed her feelings at this new development. They were slightly quivering.

He knew that, as before, she was trying to hold herself in. In an American girl, this repression would have aroused his suspicions. But he had realized that she was calm and composed by training, that composure was the law of the Orient. She was meeting this distressing situation as she had been taught to meet all emergencies, with poise and courage.

“In de do’ under de stairs,” the black woman said.

Flash said quickly, “Do you spend much of your time in that doorway?”

“Yassuh. Consid’ble. Ah was stand-in’ there when Ah saw her come down de stair and go in de study. Den Ah heard all dat bangin’ and thumpin’. Den Ah sees her come out ob dat room.”

Flash turned to Lotus Africa. “How about this?”

“It’s a lie,” she said quietly. “That woman hates me. She’s lying because she hates me.”

“And jes’ befo’ dinner,” the black woman was saying, “Ah see her go down into de cellar, and fool around wid dat electric meter — jes’ befo’ all de lights went out — wham!”

Chapter XI The Surprise at Milltown Pike

The sheriff was smiling grimly. He sent a little triumphant glance at Flash, who promptly said, “Sheriff, that woman is lying. She has some kind of prejudice against Mrs. Africa and is taking this chance to get her into trouble.”

Sheriff Hegg returned to Flash. “Son,” he said, “you’re just plain crazy. You’re sorry for this girl, and you’re out to defend her tooth and claw. It’s time wasted, Dan.” His voice was patronizing. “You don’t know these Oriental women.”

His tone indicated that he was a last-minute authority on the subject of Oriental women.

“There’s nothing left for me to do but take this woman down to jail. I’ve found enough to turn over to the coroner.”

“But you haven’t found anything,” Flash said. “This cook is lying. When I get her into court, I’ll make her eat what she just said. You haven’t anything on Mrs. Africa. You’ve rushed into this headlong. You’ve been prejudiced from the outset.”

“Maybe you ain’t prejudiced yourself!” the sheriff cried angrily.

“I’m not satisfied,” Flash answered. “What about this fellow Muroc? What about the rest of them? There’s not one person under suspicion who has a clean bill of health. Cheseldine admits he was alone. Miss Minetta admits she was alone.” He said to the butler, “Where were you when Mr. Africa was murdered?”

“In the cellar, sir, trying to fix the lights. But I’m sure nothing is wrong with the meter. If you’ll pardon me, I too, think the cook is lying. She is the worst liar I ever knew.”

“Yes,” said Blossom Vickus belligerently. “And mebby Ah’ll wring yo’ neck!”

Flash said to the chambermaid, “Where were you?”

“In my room on the third floor, sir, reading my Bible.”

“And me,” the cook said grimly, “Ah was standin’ in dat doorway, jes’ lak Ah said.”

“Discounting that,” Flash said, “not one person in this household, with the exception of Miss Hopper, has any kind of alibi. I want to know about this man Muroc. I want to know what was the nature of his business with Mr. Africa.”

“And I’m not talking,” said the mystery man.

“Miss Minetta?” Flash said.

“I know nothing about him, except that he has been here several times before,” the spinster said in her glacial voice. “He’s been here every two weeks since my brother returned from China with this woman.”

Flash said grimly, “All right! Sheriff, I want you to lock this man up on a charge of first degree homicide!”

Sheriff Hegg shook his head.

“We haven’t anything on him.”

“Then arrest him on suspicion.”

Once again, Flash encountered a stone wall. “Sorry, Dan, but it don’t seem to me that circumstances warrant it. And, after all, I’m running this show.”

“Very well,” Flash said crisply. “Don’t arrest anybody, but don’t let anybody leave this house. I’m not satisfied that you’re on the right track. I want to check up a few things. Did you bring any men along?”

“Yep. Six. They’re scattered around now, outside the house.”

“Give them orders to permit no one to leave this house.”

Lotus Africa said in her low, beautiful voice, “May I go to my room now?”

While the sheriff hesitated, Flash said, “Certainly!” And then saw another flicker of intelligence pass between Muroc and Sheriff Hegg.

“I want to have a private talk with you, Muroc,” said the sheriff.

The two men left the room. Cheseldine, with a shrug, went into the hall and up the stairs.

Once again in the privacy of the music room, Sheriff Hegg said to Muroc: “You’re on a spot. And there’s only one thing to do. You’ve got to slip out. If Horton asks questions, I’ll cover you. I’ll insist that you’re of no importance to the case.”

“No,” Muroc said. “I’ve got something to do here.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t let it worry you. Just grind your axes and I’ll grind mine.”

The sheriff looked suspicious and alarmed. “But the coroner may make things uncomfortable for you!”

“Then you’ll give me an alibi.”

“You’re forgetting that old trouble in Springfield a year ago. It may pop up somehow if you get in the limelight! We can’t take the risk, Muroc. No. You’ve got to go.”

There was a hard look in the shoe-button eyes. “Get this straight, Hegg. I’ll go when I’m ready. Tonight, I won’t be interfered with. Now run along and peddle your vegetables.”

Flash had left Minetta and her blond niece and returned to the study by way of the sitting room door. He closed that door and he closed the hall door. He went to the casement windows and looked out into the night. In the distance he heard the faint rumbling of thunder, then silence fell again.

The question tormented him: For what purpose had Benjamin Africa been killed?

Flash sat down on the edge of the desk and arranged his thoughts. He was absolutely convinced that the Eurasian girl was innocent, and he was convinced that she was destined to be the victim of forces beyond his control. He was angrily puzzled by Muroc, he was puzzled by Cheseldine, by Miss Minetta, and the blond girl.

He had seen glances pass between Minetta and the blond girl. There were, he was aware, numerous mysterious undercurrents in this dark and sinister house. But he could only guess at what was going on.

Why was Sheriff Hegg behaving so mysteriously with the mysterious Harry Muroc? Somewhere here there was a mystery. Deliberately Sheriff Hegg seemed to be shielding Muroc from questioning. He had refused to arrest him. What mysterious link joined the sheriff and the mystery man in evening clothes?

Sitting on the edge of the desk, Flash looked at the dead man’s mottled face, his staring, glassy eyes. Once again, he wondered about that soot he had found under the old man’s fingernails. He shook himself, shivering a little. His gaze fell to the blue blotter, to the little irregularly round ink spot near the bronze clip in the corner.

Flash gave a surprised grunt. The ink spot had changed its shape! No longer irregularly round, it was now oval.

He got up and walked around the desk to examine it. And he was astonished to discover that it was not an ink spot at all. It was a ball of some solid substance casting a shadow!

It was about the size of a pea. Flash carefully picked it up, and examined it in the light of the candles. It was of a black or a very dark brown substance. To his fingertips, it felt slightly sticky — the tackiness of varnish which has not quite set. He brought it close to his nostrils and sniffed.

It had an odor, and for some inexplicable reason, this odor sent a shiver through him. It was an odor that he had never before smelled. He took from his pocket the envelope on which Harry Muroc had written the number, dropped the little black ball inside, and quickly let himself out of the room.

At a half-run, he started down the hall for the front door. The sitting room, he observed, as he passed, was now occupied only by Miss Minetta and Bernice Hopper. Their heads were close together. They were whispering, and the spinster was making small, quick, decisive gestures with a clenched fist.

But he did not pause. He had suspected that they shared some mystery, and this merely confirmed his suspicions. He ran on to the door, not even pausing for his coat and hat. He opened the front door.

He started across the veranda, intending to secure his roadster which he had left parked under the pines across the turning circle.

His eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, discerned a dark figure hovering near the radiator of his roadster.

Flash leaped noiselessly down the steps, and started across the crushed stone, trying to make no sound. But it was impossible to prevent the stones from making a crunching sound.

He saw the dark figure flit away under the trees. Next he heard it stumble, then the impact of its sudden fall to the ground. He raced across the circle to the edge of the trees and listened.

He heard the neighing of a horse in a pasture. He heard, far away, the thin, somewhat mournful whistle of a train rocketing through the night. But there was no sound, no whisper of sound, from under the trees.

Flash jumped into the roadster, switched on the lights, and backed the car around so that the headlights flooded the area under the trees. But whoever had been loitering there in the darkness had completely vanished.

A spark of bright color, a bright red, on a low shrub suddenly attracted him. It was approximately the spot where the mysterious loiterer had stumbled and fallen.

He got out of the car again and went to the bush. The bright red spark proved to be a shred of flame-red silk. It had presumably been torn from some garment worn by the fugitive.

It made him feel a little ill. This shred of silk matched the red gown the Eurasian girl was wearing. She had said she was going to her room. Was she attempting to escape?

A man came out of the darkness toward him and growled, “Who’s that?”

Flash recognized the voice as that of Jim Freeman, a deputy sheriff, and answered. “It’s Dan Horton, Jim.”

“Who killed Ben Africa?”

“We don’t know — yet. Will you do me a favor? Run up to Mrs. Africa’s room and find if she’s there. That’s all. Just make sure she’s there.”

“Okay.” The deputy sheriff walked over to the veranda and entered the house.

In his absence, Flash turned the car about. Jim Freeman returned. His eyes had a dazzled look. It wasn’t necessary for him to say that Lotus Africa was in her room. Flash could understand any man’s looking dazzled for some time after gazing upon that exotically lovely face.

“She’s there,” he said.

“Thanks,” Flash said, and started off, crowding the accelerator pedal to the floor boards. If the Eurasian girl had not left that shred of vivid red silk on that bush, who, then, had? It was evident that this shred of red silk was to add still another bright thread to the mystery.

What, he wondered, was taking place in that dark and sinister house?

He drove rapidly, trying to think. He was unprepared for the shocking surprise which awaited him where the winding bluestone driveway merged with the Milltown Pike. As he slowed for the sharp turn into the Pike, two tall, thin black figures like huge black apes jumped on the running board, one on either side. Flash had an instant’s impression of a white handkerchief masking a face, and then a hand reached in like a striking snake. A black-sleeved arm was about his neck. A gloved palm was clamped down over his mouth. Another hand jerked the emergency brake. Still another hand flicked off the headlights.

In total darkness, the roadster swerved into the ditch and came to a grinding stop.

Chapter XII Flight in the Darkness

The roadster had hardly stopped when both doors were opened. Muscular arms pinned Flash Horton’s elbows to his side. He was roughly dragged out onto the road. The muzzle of a gun was pressed to his back. He was as helpless as if he were an insect imprisoned by the black arms of a tarantula.

The gun, prodding his back, started him walking.

Speculations milled in his brain. Who were these men? Old enemies? New ones? Where had they come from and what did they want? Where were they taking him?

His first conclusion was a rendezvous. They were taking him, by force, to meet someone.

But gradually the conviction was chillingly borne in upon him that this was no rendezvous. These grim, silent men were going to kill him.

They had by this time reached the pasture across from the entrance gates to Skull Knob. They were marching him across the pasture. There was no light. The sky was still overcast. And neither of these black-garbed, mysterious men carried lights of any kind.

The only sound was the soft, steady tramping of feet on the ground.

Flash said, with a sudden surge of helpless fury, “What the devil is this all about!”

There was no answer, no sound but the soft, heavy trampling of feet. His vision, now more adjusted to the darkness, could make out the scraggly arms of the apple orchard toward which they were taking him, and the greater blackness of their figures against the blackness of the night.

The muzzle of the gun pressed relentlessly, warningly, into his back.

He knew they meant to kill him. But why? Who were they? His heart was hammering on a crescendo of panic. He was thinking of Margy, left alone. And the thought of Margy made him suddenly faint and sick.

Flash, frantically searching his mind for the reason behind this hideous march through the night, suddenly sensed that some command had been given. A silent command. His two captors were proceeding more slowly.

Then Flash understood. This was not the spot where he was to be killed. They had reached the old rail fence which zig-zagged down the boundary between the pasture and the old orchard. They were merely pausing to negotiate this fence.

He was to be hoisted over the fence. The scene of death was farther beyond.

With hands firmly gripping each of his elbows, Flash was pushed to the fence. He was supposed to step over it.

He lifted his left foot. But he did not step over it. He brought his foot up and sharply backward and outward. The heel struck bone with a sharp crackling sound. A man hoarsely cursed and the tension of Flash’s left arm was abruptly relaxed. With a wrench, he freed the other arm. In the same savage forward motion, he leaped up and over the fence. His right toe did not, however, clear the top rail. It caught.

He fell forward. He stiffened himself for the thump. He struck the ground, rolled over and sprang to his feet, unhurt. He was free!

Behind him he heard a quick whisper. He saw a flicker of light stab out, but there was only a mild report, softer than the clapping of a pair of hands. Someone had fired a gun equipped with a silencer.

The bullet went crackling among the branches of an apple tree.

Flash ran on. The ground, covered with rotting apples, was soft and treacherous. He slipped, fell; picked himself up and then ran headlong into an apple tree.

A second bullet clipped over his head.

He heard his recent captors floundering about behind him. He plunged on now with his hands outstretched, to escape further collision with trees.

Presently he reached a second fence. Because of his frequent encounters with trees, his turning this way and that, he had lost all sense of direction.

But he climbed this fence. And sank knee-deep in mire. He was in a swamp. He did not know this part of the valley enough to guess where he was. There were so many swamps. But he heard the noise of the pursuit. He could not retreat. He must push on through this swamp.

He made his way carefully. He had apparently entered a zone of flatlands composed of juicy mud and stagnant water. He could not run. He must walk slowly. He slipped and fell often.

At length he heard the gurgle and splash of water ahead of him. Still he could not visualize the geography of this place. This creek was Ten Mile Creek, which wound and twisted from one end of the valley to the other. In some places it was so shallow that a small dog could cross without wetting his belly. In other places it was over a man’s head.

Flash gingerly entered the creek. The water was bitter cold. It filled his shoes. As he progressed, it reached his knees, then his waist. Shivering, he floundered across.

On the other side was more swamp. He splashed through perhaps two hundred yards of marsh, then reached firm ground again. It was a pasture. At the end of it he saw looming a vague white oblong. A barn or a house.

He stopped and listened. Faintly, he could hear the gurgle and chuckle of Ten Mile Creek, but there was no other sound. He had shaken off the pursuit.

Chapter XIII The Black Ball

But his elation, was short-lived? There still remained to be solved the mystery of his capture by the unknown pair. Who were they, and what purpose lay behind their attack on him?

With water and swamp mud streaming from his clothing, Flash plodded across the pasture toward the vague white oblong. He shivered with cold. He was wet to the skin. There wasn’t a square inch of dryness on his whole body. He sneezed.

The white house, the cluster of red outbuildings off to the right, and the row of elms beyond the house, although all were mere shadows in the blackness, suddenly assumed familiarity.

Unless Flash was mistaken, this was Jeb Simpson’s farmhouse. And he had, in crossing pastures, orchards, swamp, creek and more swamp, crossed the apex of an angle formed by the junction of the Blue Rock Road and the Milltown Turnpike. He was actually less than two miles from his own house.

He approached the back door and hammered on it with his fist. Knowing the suspicious natures of farmers for late-at-night visitors, he called, “Hey, there! Mr. Simpson!”

His clamor eventually produced a result. A light went on upstairs. Then a light went on downstairs. Then there was the harsh click of a bolt being shot back.

The door opened. Mr. Simpson stood there in a crumpled white nightshirt, with an electric torch in one hand, a double-barreled shotgun in the other.

He peered out at Flash, shining the light in his face, holding the shotgun in readiness.

Flash panted: “I’m Dan Horton. I got lost in these swamps back here, and. I want to borrow your car.”

Mr. Simpson said presently, from depths of astonishment, “Well, I’ll be danged! You better come in, son, and get some dry clothes on.”

“Thanks,” Flash said, “but I’m in too much of a rush. Ben Africa’s been killed. I’m just on my way to town in connection with it. Can I borrow your car?”

“Who killed him?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Hmph! Mark my word, it was that yaller woman!” Babbling out this theory, he took Flash to the barn. A down-at-heel Model T Ford touring car was protected from thieves and vandals by a padlock and chain large enough, Flash reflected, to moor a battleship.

Mr. Simpson informed him that he had told his wife only the other day that Ben Africa would come to no good end, bringing that yaller woman to Skull Knob.

“The Africas have all come to violent ends,” Mr. Simpson said, as Flash climbed into the driver’s seat.

Flash resumed his interrupted journey. He followed the Blue Rock Road to the Milltown Turnpike and turned left. Presently he left the turnpike, turning right into a narrow, rough macadam road which, after about a mile, became unpaved and narrower. The old Ford scrambled up rocky ledges and slithered down into gulleys. Houses became fewer, and the country began to assume a wilder aspect.

At length Flash turned in between two tall dark cedars. The road was now dirt, and, in marshy spots, corduroy. The car bumped and rattled along to the end of a ravine which grew narrower and higher as Flash progressed.

The feeble headlights presently picked out of the rocks and trees a gaunt gray house which, from its appearance, might have merited a reputation for being haunted. In its isolation, its wild surroundings, it had an air at once bleak and sinister.

Flash stopped the car, got out, and made his way up a rocky path to a front porch with skinny posts.

He pounded on a door and waited. Presently a light began to flit about inside, casting long shadow, striking cold glints from metallic points and surfaces. The light floated like a wraith toward him. An old man in a blue kimono opened the door. He stared at Flash in the feeble light of an electric pocket torch and made hissing sounds through his fangs. He was Japanese.

“Is Professor Zimmerman home?” Flash asked.

“In bed, sair.”

“Tell him Dan Horton is here.”

“Yes, sair. Wait in there, pliz. I make a light.”

He backed out of the doorway and went into a room which adjoined the hall. He removed the chimney from a large, green-domed kerosene table lamp, and applied a sizzling match to the wick. He replaced the chimney, bowed, and hissed again, and took his departure.

Flash waited. It was a rich and amazing room. There was nothing in it with the exception of the kerosene lamp that was not Oriental. On the walls were mandarin robes from Peking. Manchu rugs of gold and blue adorned the floor. On taborets about the room were specimens of Satsuma ware and cherry lacquer from Osaka, Ming vases, a variety of bronze, iron, porcelain and wooden Buddhas from southern Asia, a Brunei cymbal, and war gongs from Borneo.

It was a fascinating room. From a teakwood peg hung, by the hair, a cured head from the New Hebrides, the lamplight gleaming on the varnished planes of nose and cheeks — a grisly relic. About the picture molding were little wind bells of glass and silver, which tinkled in the faintest breath of air.

And over it all hung the faint, pungent flavor of incense. There was a brazier, still smoldering a little, before a large pink, blue and white fat-bellied Buddha with eyes of kingfisher jade.

A man came into the room; a red-faced little man of about seventy, wizened and stooped of shoulder, blinking sleepily behind square steel-rimmed spectacles.

“Ah, hello, there, Dan,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

It was characteristic of him to make no comment on Dan’s muddy, bedraggled appearance. Professor Zimmerman called himself a permanently retired scientist. He had spent his life delving into the mysteries of the Far East, penetrating its rank jungles, traversing its smoldering deserts, exploring its ancient cities, to satisfy an insatiable intellectual curiosity.

He lived in this house a few months of the year. Without warning, he would pack up and be off to his beloved Orient, on the trail of some new — or incredibly old — archeological will-o’-the-wisp.

Flash said, “Benjamin Africa was killed a little after midnight — garroted with a fine steel wire.”

“Hm!” the professor said. “An old Hindu custom. The thugs, or thags of northern India used the silken slip-noose to garrot their victims. They’d slip up behind the man they wanted to rob, drop the noose over his head and jerk it tight about his neck. Know who did it?”

“No.” Flash briefly described the scene of the murder, mentioned the suspects, and said, “I looked the study over pretty thoroughly for clues. This was lying near a corner of the desk blotter.”

He took out the envelope and rolled the little black ball into the palm of his hand.

“What is it?”

Professor Zimmerman picked the little black ball out of Flash’s palm with the tips of bunched fingers. He raised it to his nose. He sniffed it.

“Opium,” he said.

Chapter XIV The Man in the Shadows

Flash nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought. I wanted to make sure. Is it any particular kind of opium? Can you tell me anything about it?”

The old man sniffed the opium pill. He held it close to the light and flaked off a little of it with a thumbnail. Then he placed his thumbnail in his mouth. His eyes rolled and narrowed.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s the very finest kind of Benares opium. Very expensive stuff, this. A kind seldom seen in America.”

Flash said, “You mean, there are different qualities, or brands, of opium — like cigarettes?”

“Not quite the same analogy applies. But there are a great many different grades and varieties of opium. This is a peculiarly fine, purified grade. In the old days, only a ruby-button mandarin would have smoked such fine opium as this.”

“Is it mild?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Who would smoke this grade of opium today?”

“The highest type of Chinese women smoke a great deal of it.”

Flash replaced, the opium pill in the envelope, and restored the envelope to his pocket. He felt a little ill. Inexorably, it seemed, all trails, all clues, led to Lotus Africa. For a moment, he doubted his faith in her innocence. There was, first of all, the hairpin; now — this! Yet he found himself clinging to his belief that someone had placed the hairpin just within the dead man’s collar so that suspicion would fasten itself to her.

And this opium, actually, did not prove anything. Certainly, it did not prove that she had killed Benjamin Africa. Nor did it even prove that she used opium.

Professor Zimmerman was saying, “Perhaps Benjamin Africa cultivated a fondness for opium in China. He was an eccentric man.”

“It wasn’t there, professor, when I went into his study the first time.”

“Then if I were you, I’d thoroughly investigate this man from Hongkong. Doesn’t the garroting wire — and also the opium — point to someone out of the Far East?”

Flash acknowledged the logic of this; thanked him and took his departure. Reaching the Milltown Turnpike, he did not proceed immediately to Skull Knob, but stopped at his own house. Fortunately Margy’s room was upstairs and his was downstairs, so that, if he moved quietly, he would not wake her. He wanted a gun and he wanted a change of clothes. So he took a shower, got into dry clothing, and dropped his automatic pistol into his coat pocket. He wanted no questions asked about his bedraggled appearance.

He reached the entrance gates to Skull Knob with no greater adventure than a boiling radiator. He passed his roadster, in the ditch, and saw that it would have to be towed out. He would have it attended to in the morning.

By the time he was half-way up the long grade to the Africa mansion, the radiator’s boiling had become a serious matter. He shifted to low gear. The old engine protested with such clamorous hammerings that he realized he could not reach the hilltop. Steam was spouting from the radiator cap in clouds.

With perhaps an eighth of a mile to go, he pulled off the road. Leaving the mechanical antique under a tree, he walked the rest of the way.

The old house came out of the darkness, a dull mass relieved by the stripes of orange light which were windows.

His thoughts went back to the pill of opium — and Lotus Africa. Inexorably the net seemed to be closing in about, her. Something in him protested that it must be checked — protested that the girl was innocent.

But why had Benjamin Africa been killed! Here, Flash felt instinctively, lay the solution of the mystery. If he could discover why, he would know who. For what reason had that great, booming savage of a man been slain?

Flash took a short cut through shrubbery. He was within a hundred yards of the house when there occurred suddenly, off to his right, the sound of a whistle. It was a faint, eerie whistle — a veritable ghost of thin sound. It was as thin, as high as the notes of a Chinese flute — a curiously shrill, melancholy, Oriental sound.

From the rear of the house — in the opposite direction — a man appeared. As he passed a window, his profile was for a moment silhouetted. It was Jim Freeman, the deputy sheriff. He looked grim and wary, as if he, too, had heard the sound. As he passed the window Flash saw that there was a gun in his hand.

As Flash hesitated, the ghostly whistle was repeated. Cautiously, Flash advanced under the trees in the direction of the deputy sheriff. He presently heard his cautious footsteps in the dry grass and whispered, “Jim!”

A whisper answered, “Who is it?”

“Dan Horton.”

He made his way to where the deputy sheriff was standing. Jim Freeman grasped his elbow. “You hear that whistle?”

“Yes. Wait. It sounded like a signal of some kind.”

They presently saw a dark shadow detach itself from a bush near the house. As this shadow neared the house, the two men saw that it was long and slender — a tall man. He was looking up at an upstairs window. A white shade was drawn down to the sill. The light shining against this shade was as bright, as white as electric light. It was, Flash guessed, produced by a gasoline lamp with welsbach burner.

As the two men waited, a sharp silhouette was cast against the shade. It was the head, as cleanly defined as a cameo, of Lotus Africa.

Her crisp, lovely profile moved swiftly across the shade. Her head bent down. Then the shade went up.

Lotus Africa placed her hands on the sill and looked out and down. The brilliant white light, somewhere behind her, streamed about her head and struck gleams of fire from the red silk gown, and silver-blue glints from her ebony-black hair.

The shadow under the window moved. The girl softly whispered. Flash clearly heard the whisper, but the words were in some foreign tongue, presumably Chinese. The shadowy man below the window whispered an answer in the same tongue. The girl in red slowly nodded her little head and gestured with one finger.

Flash and the deputy sheriff watched the man approach the side of the house. They saw him grasp a gutter pipe and test it with his weight. And they watched him pull himself, hand over hand, with the agility of a monkey, up the pipe to the window out of which the beautiful Eurasian girl leaned.

Chapter XV The Figures in the Window

It was, to Flash, so unexpected, so mysterious, so completely Oriental from beginning to end, that he felt he must be dreaming. It was incredible, as if he had suddenly opened his eyes upon some scene from the “Arabian Nights.”

But there were other surprises. As the Chinese swung in over the windowsill, Flash caught a fleeting glimpse of washed-out blue, and garish red. The washed-out blue was his clothing — a loose, strange jacket, and loose, baggy pants. Around his middle was a red sash. Was it a shred from this sash that Flash had found on the bush near his roadster just before he started for Professor Zimmerman’s?

Flash heard the deputy sheriff beside him giving little grunts of astonishment.

This strange visitor was not dressed as Orientals in America dress, but in the costume of his country, the loose, washed-out blue garments, the sash about his waist.

His hair was close-cropped and black. His mustache was of the drooping mandarin type.

Flash now glanced sharply at the girl. She had extended a slim white hand to help the young Chinaman over the sill and into her room. The climax of this swift succession of surprises was the look in her eyes. Unmasked — a look of venomous hatred!

Flash emitted a soft gasp of despair. He sensed, in this meeting, a flavor so mysterious, so Oriental, that it disheartened him. How could he hope to cope with an intrigue so dark and so intricate, with a situation so perplexing in its fantastic design!

His doubts of Lotus Africa’s innocence were wavering again. Certainly, she had so far furnished not one atom of evidence to support his hope that she was innocent of her husband’s killing.

The shade went swiftly down. The shadows on the shade of the girl and her mysterious visitor vanished, then reappeared. They were sinking down, facing each other, not more than two feet apart. Presumably, they were sitting in chairs. And, from their postures, Flash gathered that some sort of small, low table was standing between them.

The silhouettes of their faces and bodies to their waists was clean-cut, perfect. He could even see, very clearly, the mandarin mustache the young man wore, and the soft, delicate curve of the girl’s breast.

The man’s lips were moving rapidly. Then the girl’s lips began to move more rapidly. The faint murmur of their voices made a low, soft humming.

Then something appeared in the girl’s hand. It appeared to be a cylindrical object. The man’s hand came up and removed the object from the girl’s hand.

There was more rapid fire talk. Then the man’s shoulders and arms began moving in strange jerks, and the girl was bending toward him. Flash guessed that the man was searching in his pockets for something, or giving something to the girl.

Then here was an exciting new development. A long thin wire in the girl’s hand was now casting its shadow on the white shade. On the end of the wire was a small lump. The girl was spinning the wire in her hands and holding the small lump over something on the table.

Flash knew what the girl was doing. She was heating a pill of opium over a flame of some sort.

Suddenly, verifying his guess, the clear black silhouette of an opium pipe appeared. The girl was thrusting the sizzling wad of gum into the pipe. She pressed it down, twirling the wire. Quickly, she placed the bit of the pipe between her lips. A puff of smoke from her lips threw its shadow on the white shade.

Flash said, “Jim, don’t mention this to a soul. Not even the sheriff. Wait here. Watch that window. If he comes out that way, grab him.”

He ran to the veranda, and into the house, and up the stairs. From one of the rooms he heard voices. Sheriff Hegg’s and Miss Minetta’s voices, in eager discussion. Near the stairhead stood the horsefaced butler.

Flash whispered, “Where’s Mrs. Africa’s room?”

“There, sir.”

Flash went swiftly to the door. He hesitated only a moment. Certainly, this was no time to observe the amenities. Without knocking, he grasped the knob. He expected the door to be locked. But it wasn’t locked.

He threw the door open and strode into the room.

Lotus Africa was standing near a dressing table with her fingers touching the lid of a red lacquer box from which jewels were strewn down upon the table; a rope of pearls, a jumble of diamonds, emeralds and sapphires in gold and platinum settings.

Flash swiftly glanced about the room. The man with the mandarin mustache was not in the room.