"I expect Harry is right, and that the priest with the scar murdered his mother. No doubt the man learned why Harry was hanging round the Home of Art and laid his plans accordingly."
"But Martha did not possess the emerald!" insisted the Squire, doubtfully.
"The priest did not know that at the time," said Dane, grimly; "his accomplice watched Harry, apparently, while the man with the scar watched the Crook Street house. He must have induced Martha to let him in--she might have thought it was her son, you know. Then, when she grew frightened, and threatened him with her stiletto, he used it against her, and having murdered the poor old thing, finally searched the house."
Colpster nodded. He could see no other solution of the mystery. "Curious, though, that the priest did not get caught by the police."
"Oh, according to the evidence the fog was very bad, and one policeman confessed in print that he did not patrol the cul de sac carefully. Pity he did not catch the brute."
"Oh!" said Colpster, with a grim look, "Harry will see that the man is punished. He is going from Amsterdam in a tramp steamer to Japan for that very purpose."
"I can't understand," said Theodore, after a pause, and tapping the desk with his long fingers, "why Harry didn't give me the emerald when he met me. It would have saved all this trouble."
The Squire coughed in rather an embarrassed manner. He could scarcely tell Theodore that Harry, acting under his mother's instructions, wished particularly to prevent him from gaining possession of the jewel. He therefore shrugged his shoulders and evaded the question. "There are many things we cannot understand in connection with this case."
"Quite so," said Theodore, with an uneasy look at the safe; "particularly why the Mikado Jewel should have been sent to you. Uncle," he added, after a pause, "get rid of it. Sell it; pawn it; return it to Akira to take back to Japan, but send it out of the house, I beg of you."
"Why?" demanded Colpster, drawing his brows together; "are you mad?"