The Peacock of Jewels BY FERGUS HUME AUTHOR OF “THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB,” “THE RED WINDOW,” “THE YELLOW HOLLY,” “THE SEALED MESSAGE,” “THE DISAPPEARING EYE,” ETC., ETC. G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK _Copyright_, 1910, _By_ G W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE ROTHERHITHE CRIME CHAPTER II. AT THE VICARAGE CHAPTER III. A STORY OF THE PAST CHAPTER IV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR CHAPTER V. THE LETTER CHAPTER VI. THE BOARDING-HOUSE CHAPTER VII. YULETIDE CHAPTER VIII. AN EXPLANATION CHAPTER IX. ANOTHER TRAIL CHAPTER X. MR. SORLEY’S JEWELS CHAPTER XI. JOTTY CHAPTER XII. AN INDIAN CLIENT CHAPTER XIII. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR CHAPTER XIV. FACE TO FACE CHAPTER XV. THE BLACK BAG CHAPTER XVI. MISS INDERWICK’S EXCURSION CHAPTER XVII. THE SECRET CHAPTER XVIII. THE TREASURE HUNT CHAPTER XIX. AT DAWN CHAPTER XX. WHO IS GUILTY? CHAPTER XXI. THE TRUTH CHAPTER XXII. CALM AFTER STORM THE PEACOCK OF JEWELS CHAPTER I THE ROTHERHITHE CRIME To find Barkers Inn was much the same to an ordinary person as looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack. Dick Latimer, however, knew its exact whereabouts, because he lived there, and on this foggy November night he was making for it unerringly with the homing instinct of a bee. Leaving Fleet Street behind him, somewhere about eleven-thirty, he turned into Chancery Lane, and then struck off to the right down a by-road which narrowed to an alley, and finally ended in a cul-de-sac. Here the young man hurried through the rusty iron gates of a granite archway, and found himself in an oblong courtyard paved with cobble-stones and surrounded by tumble-down houses with steep roofs of discolored tiles. A few steps took him across this to a crooked little door, which he entered to mount a crooked little staircase, and in one minute he was on the first-floor landing, where a tiny gas-jet pricked the gloom with a bluish spot of light. Hastily using his latchkey, he admitted himself through a door on the left into a stuffy dark passage, technically called the entrance hall. Eventually entering the sitting-room, he hurled himself into a creaking basket-chair, and gave thanks to the gods of home that he had arrived. The friend with whom Latimer shared these Barkers Inn chambers was seated by the fire clothed comfortably in a suit of shabby old flannels, reading a letter and smoking a briar-root, complacently at ease. He nodded when Dick stormed into the room, and spoke with his pipe between his teeth. “Beastly night, isn’t it?” remarked Mr. Fuller, who had been spending the evening at home very pleasantly. “You’d say much more than that, Alan, my boy, if you’d been out in the fog,” retorted Latimer. “Bur-r-r I’m glad to be indoors and to find you still out of bed at the eleventh hour. I’ve had adventures: official adventures.”