could get into the room, a horrible sight awaited them. On the
duchess's dressing-table her two bedroom candles were still burning,
just as the maid says she left them when she went out and met the young
duke coming up the stairs; on the bed lay the duchess herself, stone
dead, a noosed rope drawn tightly round her neck, used, no doubt, to
keep her from calling out, and the bedding was literally saturated with
the blood which flowed from several stab wounds in the breast, the side,
and the fleshy upper part of both arms."

"Hum-m-m!" commented Cleek. "That looks as if she had struggled very
desperately, and one would hardly expect that from a woman of her
advanced years and choked into breathlessness at that. Still, her arms
could not have been cut otherwise; arms are not vital parts, and the
maddest of assassins would know that. So, of course, they were either
slashed unavoidably in a desperate death struggle or, else----" His
brows knotted, his voice slipped off into reflective silence. He took
his chin between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard. After a
moment, however: "Mr. Narkom," he inquired, "were the Siva stones found
to have been stolen at the same time that the body was discovered, or
was their loss learned of later?"

"Oh, at the very instant the body was discovered, my dear chap. It
could hardly have been overlooked for so much as an instant, for the
slender chain upon which they had formerly hung was lying across the
body, the setting of the gems had been prised open and the diamond
removed."

"Singular circumstances, both."

"In what way, Cleek?"

"Well, for one thing, it shows that the assassin must have had plenty of
time and a very good reason for taking the stones without their setting.
If he hadn't, he'd have grabbed the thing and done that elsewhere. Must
have taken them to the light for the purpose and laid them down upon
some firm, hard surface; you can't pick a diamond out of a good setting
without some little difficulty, Mr. Narkom, and certainly not in the
palm of your hand. Why, then, should the assassin have brought the chain
back after that operation and laid it upon the body of the victim?
Rather looks as if he wanted the fact that the stones had disappeared to
be apparent at first glance. Any other jewels stolen at the same time?"

"No; only the Siva stones."

"Hum-m-m! And the noosed rope that was about the neck of the murdered
woman; what was that like? Something that