"You remember that young American chap I pointed out in a motor last week—the fellow who came over about the Panama Canal, intending to go back, but wound up by getting engaged to an English girl and settling down here...?"
"Anthony Winton, do you mean? Yes, of course I do. If my memory holds right, he is the son of a California millionaire, and with a pretty taste in jewels. Made a hobby of outlandish settings, photographs were in the Connoisseur. The woman who marries him will never go short of unique jewels. Wasn't he to have been married to-day, by the way, according to the papers?"
"'Was' is the correct word, Cleek," said Narkom in a hushed tone. "There will be no wedding for him, poor chap. The man has been murdered——"
"Murdered!" Cleek interrupted, sitting up suddenly. "Winton murdered! How? When?"
"Last night," said Narkom. "Robbery is supposed to have been the motive, and suspicion points in half-a-dozen directions."
"What has been stolen, something from his collection?"
"Yes. As you yourself said, he had a mania for queer jewels, and the one that is missing is the queerest of the lot—rubies mounted on a stem. A Burmese thing, known as the 'Rose of Fire,' made of priceless pigeon-blood rubies, and supposed to have been stolen from the temple of Buddha in Mandalay.
"I was told it was a rose with ruby petals and emerald stem and worth thousands."