little murmur of comprehension, and nodded his head two or three times.
"Murdered, poor fellow, in my opinion," continued John Purvis. "And I'll tell you why I think so. About November 8th or 9th—I can't be sure to a day—I got a telegram from Stephen, sent off from Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, saying he'd be at Plymouth on the 15th, and asking me to meet him there. So I went to Plymouth on the morning of the 15th. His boat, the Golconda, came in at night, and we went to an hotel together and stopped the night there. We hadn't met for some years, and of course he'd a great deal to tell—but he'd one thing in particular—he'd struck such a piece of luck as he'd never had in his life before!—and he hadn't been one of the unlucky ones, either!"
"What was this particular piece of luck?" asked Mr. Killick.
John Purvis looked round as if to make sure of general attention.
"He'd come into possession, through a fortunate bit of trading, up country in South Africa, of one of the finest diamonds ever discovered!" he answered. "I know nothing about such things, but he said it was an orange-yellow diamond that would weigh at least a hundred and twenty carats when cut, and was worth, as far as he could reckon, some eighty to ninety thousand pounds. Anyway, that was what he'd calculated he was going to get for it here in London—and what he wanted to see me about, in addition to telling me of his luck, was that he wanted to buy a real nice bit of property in
