Page:The orange-yellow diamond by Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith).djvu/221

 glanced round the garden—and suddenly pointed to a dark patch on the ground.

"There's blood there!" he said. "Blood!"

"Blood!" exclaimed Ayscough. " There's blood all the way down this path! The man's been stabbed as he came in at that door, and his body was then dragged up the path and thrust in here. Now then!—off you go to the station, and tell 'em what we've found. Get help—he'll have to be taken to the mortuary. And you'll want men to keep a watch on this house—tell the inspector all about it and say I'm here. And here—leave me that lamp of yours."

The policeman took off his bull's eye lantern and handed it over. Ayscough let him out of the door, and going back to Melky, beckoned him towards the house.

"Let's see if there's any way of getting in here," he said. "My conscience, Mr. Rubinstein!—you must have had some instinct about coming here tonight! We've hit on something—but Lord bless me if I know what it is!"

"Mr. Ayscough!" said Melky. "I hadn't a notion of aught like that—it's give me a turn! But don't I know what it means, Mr. Ayscough—not half! It's all of a piece with the rest of it! Murder, Mr. Ayscough—bloody murder! All on account of that orange-yellow diamond we've heard of—at last. Ah!—if I'd known there was that at the bottom of this affair, I'd ha' been a bit sharper in coming to conclusions, I would so! Diamond worth eighty thousand pounds—"

Ayscough, who had been busy at the front door of the house, suddenly interrupted his companion's reflections.