"I should say so," the young man answered. "It was a complicated bit of business—the mine's in other hands, you see—but Sinclair reckoned that he'd got a claim to it, anyway, and he expected either to be squared for a big amount, or to get a syndicate to take the thing up. He came to me dead on his uppers. My name's Hefferom. He and I had been pretty thick at odd times, and though we'd been in a good many deals together, we'd kept friends in a way. He came to me, as I say, in Cape Town, and he told me what the game was. He wanted a matter of two or three hundred pounds to get over to this side, and to start things properly. Well, I thought it out, and though it was about all I was worth in the world, I let him have it. Over he comes. I got a letter from him to say he'd landed, and never another line. I cabled—no answer. Over I came myself, for he'd scarcely left Cape Town before a little affair that I was mixed up in went plumb wrong, and I lost every penny I'd got left. So over here I come, and I've been here a fortnight, and I tell you Sinclair seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. The worst of it is," he continued, "I'm stoney-broke. I've got to leave this place to-day because I can't pay my bill, and I've no idea where to raise a sovereign."
The girl's sense of humor triumphed for a second over her excitement. "There are your diamonds," she reminded him. "I heard you talking about them at dinner the other night. One of them you said was worth a hundred pounds."
"A bluff," he answered readily. "They are false, every one of them. I talked like that to get old mother Towsley to let my account go on a bit, but she wasn't having any. Now, I say, I've told you my story. Tell me why you are so keen on knowing about it."
"Yes," she said, "I will tell you. My name is Ruby Sinclair, and I am the niece of the man whom you have come to England to find."
He made use of an oath for which he forgot even to apologize. "You know where he is!" he exclaimed. "Come, remember it was a fair bargain. Information for information!"
"He is dead!"
The young man staggered back. His first emotion of shocked surprise lasted only a few seconds. Anger and disappointment took its place. "Dead?" he exclaimed. "And my money—what about that? What he left belongs to me, anyway. It's got to be made up. I can show you his note for it."
"You had better wait," she answered coldly, "Until I have told you everything. I suppose you don't read the papers?"
"Never," he answered. "What good are they to me?"
"They might have been of some use on the present occasion," she answered. "They might at any rate have saved you from wasting a good deal of time. My uncle was murdered in the Hotel Universal by a man named Rowan."