I've got the hiding-place of the Siva
stones as well! Humph! Fainted like any other human brute when he's
pushed to the wall! That's right, Hammond; call the constable in from
outside and take the pair of them away. Oh, don't waste any pity on
them, your Grace," as the duke moved impulsively toward the stricken and
defeated pair. "They wouldn't have hesitated to hang you if they could
have turned the evidence your way and saved their own wretched
skins--and all for a pair of rose-pink diamonds that are red enough now,
God knows. What's that? Where are they? Where you must get a surgeon to
abstract them, for I wouldn't touch them for millions, your Grace. They
are hidden in the body itself, embedded in the flesh, jammed out of
sight through those cuts in the arms and embedded under the muscles!"

"Good heaven, how horrible!"

"Yes, isn't it? Oh, they laid their plans well, those two, and they laid
them together. The body would not be put underground for a long, long
time, and when it was the Siva stones would not go to earth with it.
There was the specially constructed vault at Brompton, their private
property. They would get the stones while the body lay there, and nobody
would be a whit the wiser.

"Ring for a glass of wine, your Grace, and after you have steadied your
nerves I'll take you upstairs and show you something. In the captain's
room there's a wardrobe which has a false back, and behind that is a
sliding panel, its joining hidden by the stripes of the wall-paper,
which leads into the old duchess's bedroom. That is how they got in and
got out again and left every door and window locked on the inside. When
they had finished their work, they lit the candles, and the rest you
know. If there is anything to joy over in this appalling affair, find it
in this fact: I am convinced that the dowager duchess died intestate.
That being so, and she having no other living relatives, her property
will no doubt be divided equally, by order of the Crown, between three
persons: yourself, for one, and those two poor, homeless creatures, Tom
Spender and his sister, for the others; and as it amounts to several
millions sterling, dark days are over for you and for them forever!"

* * * * *

"How did I find it out?" said Cleek, answering Narkom's question, as
they drove home through the shadows of evening together. "Well, I think
I first got a suspicion of the captain and his wife when you told me