"I knew Mr. James Allerdyke very well, and I've done business with him for the last two years," replied Fullaway. "Just so," assented Allerdyke. "And your business--" "That of a general agent--an intermediary, if you like," answered Fullaway. "I arrange private sales a good deal between European sellers and American buyers--pictures, curiosities, jewels, antiques, and so on. I'm pretty well known, Mr. Allerdyke, on both sides the Atlantic." "Quite so," said Allerdyke. "I'm not in that line, however, and I don't know you. But I'll tell you all I do know and you'll tell me all you know. When I searched my cousin for papers, I found this wire from you--sent to James at St. Petersburg. Now then, what does it refer to? Those valuables you hinted at just now?" "Exactly!" answered Fullaway. "Nothing less!" "What valuables are they?" asked Allerdyke. "Jewels! Worth a quarter of a million," replied Fullaway. "What? Dollars?" Fullaway laughed derisively. "Dollars! No, pounds! Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, my dear sir!" he answered. "You think he had them on him?" "I'm sure he had them on him!" asserted Fullaway. He, in his turn, began to produce papers. "At any rate, he had them on him when he was in Christiania the other day. He was bringing them over here--to me." "On whose behalf?" asked Allerdyke. "On behalf of a Russian lady, a Princess, who wished to find a purchaser for them," replied the American promptly. "In that case--to come to the point," said Allerdyke, "if my cousin James had that property on him when he landed here last night and it wasn't--as it certainly wasn't--on him when I found him this morning---he's been robbed?" "Robbed--and murdered that he might be robbed!" answered Fullaway. The two men looked steadily at each other for a while. Then Allerdyke laid his papers on the table between them. "You'd better tell me all you know about it," he said quietly. "Let's hear it all--then we shall be getting towards knowing what to do."