“Then the tough mug came out and began picking a quarrel with us. The sailor was drunk and made a dash at him. He got a thump on the head that will hold him for a long time, I reckon, and then the tough came at me. I gave him one in the eye, and he turned and ran away. I think he went up the stairway, but the mob says he went into the store.” “He is probably cursing the clerk good and plenty by this time,” said Nick. “I figure it out that the clerk thought he dumped the other sailor’s partner when he dumped me, and so imagined that both were provided for. Then, when the bully saw the other one on the street with you, he understood that something must be done, for he knew too much about the diamond deal, and would be making inquiries for his partner, who had entered this place not long before.” “And his partner is dead?” asked Patsy. “Dead down there in the cellar,” said Nick. “And the bully thought that both parties to the diamond deal were down there, all safe and beyond the power of harm?” “That is about it.” “Well,” said Patsy, “if one is dead, the rascals are safe for a time, all right, for the other will not be out of the hospital for a long time, and may not know his own name when he does come out. He got a fierce smash on the front of the head.” “It was evidently the purpose to craze the man,” said Nick. “That seems to be a cheerful way these fellows have. Well, this leaves us in bad shape. I know now that the two sailors took the diamonds from the Maynard house, but I don’t know where the diamonds are any more than I did an hour ago. Again, these men might have thrown some light on the murder of Alvin Maynard. That is now impossible, for one is dead and the other may never regain his senses.” “This man Hartley seems to be playing a close game,” said Patsy. “Dumped you, did they?” Nick explained very briefly what had taken place in Hartley’s establishment. “So the diamonds are actually lost?” asked Patsy. “It seems so,” was the reply. “The sailors got them, in what manner I hope soon to learn, and turned them over to the agent. The agent put them in his trunk in their presence and checked them to New York. When the trunk got to Hartley’s the diamonds were gone, and a counterfeit package lay in the trunk. And it seems that both the sailor and the agent went to Hartley for their pay, which they would not have done if they had played him false. It is a great mix-up, and the finding of the men who took the diamonds from the house seems to have little bearing on the finding of the man who killed Alvin Maynard.” “There must be some common-sense solution,” said Patsy. “I have thought,” said Nick, “that the sailors took from the house a package supposed to contain the diamonds, but I can’t imagine them traveling to the station and turning over what they had to the agent without knowing whether they had the gems or not. They would not trust to appearances—such men never do.”