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By Root 474 0

War. A thoroughly bad lot, I believe, but most attractive. The purser expressed his regrets that she wasn’t on board in a most heartfelt fashion when he gave me her cabin, and then Colonel Race told me a lot about her. It seems there were very queer stories afloat in Paris. She was suspected of espionage, but they couldn’t prove anything. I rather fancy Colonel Race was over there simply on that account. He’s told me some very interesting things. There was a regular organized gang, not German in origin at all. In fact the head of it, a man always referred to as “the Colonel”, was thought to be an Englishman, but they never got any clue to his identity. But there is no doubt that he controlled a considerable organization of international crooks. Robberies, espionage, assaults, he undertook them all–and usually provided an innocent scapegoat to pay the penalty. Diabolically clever, he must have been! This woman was supposed to be one of his agents, but they couldn’t get hold of anything to go upon. Yes, Anne, we’re on the right tack. Nadina is just the woman to be mixed up in this business. The appointment on the morning of the 22nd was with her in this cabin. But where is she? Why didn’t she sail?’

A light flashed upon me.

‘She meant to sail,’ I said slowly.

‘Then why didn’t she?’

‘Because she was dead. Suzanne, Nadina was the woman murdered at Marlow!’

My mind went back to the bare room in the empty house and there swept over me again the indefinable sensation of menace and evil. With it came the memory of the falling pencil and the discovery of the roll of films. A roll of films–that struck a more recent note. Where had I heard of a roll of films? And why did I connect that thought with Mrs Blair?

Suddenly I flew at her and almost shook her in my excitement.

‘Your films! The ones that were passed to you through the ventilator? Wasn’t that on the 22nd?’

‘The ones I lost?’

‘How do you know they were the same? Why would anyone return them to you that way–in the middle of the night? It’s a mad idea. No–they were a message, the films had been taken out of the yellow tin case, and something else put inside. Have you still got it?’

‘I may have used it. No, here it is. I remember I tossed it into the rack at the side of the bunk.’

She held it out to me.

It was an ordinary round tin cylinder, such as films are packed in for the tropics. I took it with trembling hand, but even as I did so my heart leapt. It was noticeably heavier than it should have been.

With shaking fingers I peeled off the strip of adhesive plaster that kept it air-tight. I pulled off the lid, and a stream of dull glassy pebbles rolled on to the bed.

‘Pebbles,’ I said, keenly disappointed.

‘Pebbles?’ cried Suzanne.

The ring in her voice excited me.

‘Pebbles? No, Anne, not pebbles! Diamonds!’

Chapter 15

Diamonds!

I stared, fascinated, at the glassy heap on the bunk. I picked up one which, but for the weight, might have been a fragment of broken bottle.

‘Are you sure, Suzanne?’

‘Oh, yes, my dear. I’ve seen rough diamonds too often to have any doubts. They’re beauties too, Anne–and some of them are unique, I should say. There’s a history behind these.’

‘The history we heard tonight,’ I cried.

‘You mean–’

‘Colonel Race’s story. It can’t be a coincidence. He told it for a purpose.’

‘To see its effect, you mean?’

I nodded.

‘Its effect on Sir Eustace?’

‘Yes.’

But, even as I said it, a doubt assailed me. Was it Sir Eustace who had been subjected to a test, or had the story been told for my benefit? I remembered the impression I had received on that former night of having been deliberately ‘pumped’. For some reason or other, Colonel Race was suspicious. But where did he come in? What possible connexion could he have with the affair?

‘Who is Colonel Race?’ I asked.

‘That’s rather a question,’ said Suzanne. ‘He’s pretty well known as a big-game hunter, and, as you heard him say tonight, he was a distant cousin of Sir Laurence Eardsley. I’ve never actually met him until this trip. He journeys to and from Africa a good deal. There