Coldwell picked it up and examined it curiously. It was a large, square emerald in a platinum setting, one edge of which was broken, as though it had been torn forcibly from a large ornament. “That is queer,” he said. She took the emerald from his hand and carried it nearer to the lamp. Now she knew that she had made no mistake. It was the pendant on the chain she had seen that evening glittering on Lady Raytham’s neck! CHAPTER VI. THE EFFECT ON LADY RAYTHAM In a few words she told her companion. For his part he was too worried about her presence to comprehend fully. “You had better get into the car, Leslie. Driver, take Miss Maughan----” “I’ll stay here,” said Leslie in a low voice. “I’m not very shocked. And please don’t touch that overcoat.” He was stooping to unfasten the button when she spoke. “Not till you let me see it.” Mr. Coldwell hesitated a moment and then stepped aside, and the girl bent over the figure, keeping her eyes averted from that white face. “I thought so,” she said. “The second button has been fastened to the third buttonhole. Whoever killed him, put on his overcoat and buttoned it. Now you can unfasten it.” Mr. Coldwell sent the chauffeur for assistance and resumed his examination of the body. The man had been shot at close range through the heart; the waistcoat had been burned by the explosion. There were no other injuries that he could see. One side of the figure was yellow with dust, as though it had been dragged some distance along the ground. “I wish you wouldn’t----” Coldwell looked round in helpless distress. He had taken an electric flash light from the car before he sent it away, and this he had placed on the path so that the rays spread fan-shape over the body. “Couldn’t you wait at a little distance?” “Please don’t worry about me, Mr. Coldwell,” said Leslie. There was no tremor in her voice, he noted with satisfaction. “I am not going to faint. You seem to forget that the majority of nurses are women; and death isn’t so horrible to me as some expressions of life. Can I help you at all? I’ve got a tiny little pencil lamp in my bag.” He scratched his chin. “I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “You might look in the road and see if you can find any marks of a body being dragged, and then search around a bit.” She got out the lamp, which, in spite of its smallness, gave a very bright light, and carried out his instructions methodically. She had not to look far before she found the traces she sought: a serpentine smear that reached from the centre of the road to the sidewalk. There were stains--little red smudges that were still wet when she put her finger to them.