"What's that? The lights wrong?"
"Yes, he said, and Calvert, too, that every light in the place went out just as Calvert got into the room. Then they flashed on again, and that's how he looked for the jewels, directly he saw his master was dead, in order to find whether they had been stolen."
"Very thoughtful of him," put in Cleek, pinching up his chin. "Very!"
"Yes, and that's not the only funny thing. Nothing else but the 'Rose' was missing, although other stones of the collection were there. Winton had evidently been polishing or looking at them. You would have thought the thief would have cleared the lot."
"Possibly! And yet, too, he might have banked on one single jewel not being missed immediately and let him get a good start away."
"But to come back to Colonel Parradine," said Narkom. "Wills tells me he met him half-way down the lane as he was going for the doctor either very ill and shaken or much the worse for drink. His clothes were dusty and awry as if he had had a fall, and that's how he accounted for his condition. He said he had been knocked down by a motor on his way from the station. But there were scratches on his face and hands which gave him the appearance of having dropped from a high window rather than of having been in a motor accident. As Winton's gallery is a sheer drop of thirty feet from the ground, you can imagine it looks strange. Anyhow, Wills told him what had happened and left the Colonel to come on to the Manor Lodge as best he could."
"Looks bad, I must say. Still, if he had had any hand in it, he would hardly have been hanging about the lane near the scene of the murder. But you never know. Anyhow, it's easy to round up someone who saw or heard of that accident. It remains to be seen what the Colonel has to say. Any possibility of his secreting the jewel himself?"
"Hardly," said Narkom. "Considering that he drew my attention to its loss. Besides, to make things worse, I phoned through to headquarters on my way up and learned that some loose rubies were pawned in London at nine o'clock this morning by a woman who answers vaguely a description of Miss Parradine herself."
"That looks worst of all," said Cleek. "Give me five minutes to jump into another suit, Mr. Narkom, and we'll see what Mr. George Headland can do."