Bannister took some sheets of notepaper from his coat pocket. “It’s a most mysterious and baffling case,” he began. “That’s not said in any sense of self-defence. I don’t suppose for one moment that the omniscient fiction-weaver whose effort illuminates the columns of the ‘Daily Bugle’ realises one-tenth of the difficulties that the Police have encountered. You know the main outline of the case, sir, so I won’t waste your time or my own with any unnecessary detail. Rather will I condense my report and give you the salient points as they impress me.” He looked at the Commissioner for approval. A quick nod from Sir Austin gave it to him. “First of all,” he continued, “we were faced with that remarkable attempt on the part of the murderer to confuse the identity of the murdered girl with that of another lady—Miss Daphne Carruthers. Why? Was it deliberate? You might venture half a dozen reasons and yet be wrong. For there is the undoubted fact that both Miss Delaney and Miss Carruthers had a Westhampton connection—please note that! Then, taking events in what I will term logical sequence, we have, one, the association—the _admitted_ association, mind you—of the Crown Prince of Clorania with Miss Carruthers, and, two, the association of the Crown Prince with Miss Delaney by Alan Warburton, who was—we have good reason to suppose—Sheila Delaney’s discarded lover. Not a bad mixture for a detective to commence with—eh?” Sir Austin Kemble grunted non-committally. “Don’t forget also,” proceeded Bannister—a suggestion of resentful vehemence creeping into his tone—“that Sheila Delaney had the Carruthers girl’s suit-case in her possession and that a room was actually booked for her at the ‘Lauderdale’ Hotel in Miss Carruthers’ name. Booked by telephone—two people in the ‘Lauderdale’ vouch for it.” Sir Austin broke in rather dictatorially. “Tried tracing that call?” he said brusquely. “I have that,” replied Bannister instantly, “unsuccessfully.” He jerked his head with impatience. “What I’ve told you so far, I’ll call, for the sake of clarity, the first section of the case. I’ll now embark upon what I will term the second. Miss Delaney, at some time or other, was robbed—you know that, don’t you? She was robbed of one hundred pounds in notes and also—what is much more to the point—of a supposedly wonderful precious stone worth a very large sum, I believe. The figure ‘twenty thousand pounds’ has been mentioned to me in connection with it.” “That’s the stone to which you refer in your notes as ‘The Peacock’s Eye’?”