There was a great orange-yellow
diamond in various folds of tissue-paper, and a thick wad of bank-notes,
with an indiarubber band round them.
These valuables lay, carelessly displayed, on the table when the party
from Pilmansey's Tea Rooms came tumbling into the shop and the parlour, an
hour later. Melky was calmly smoking a cigar--and he went on smoking it as
he led the Inspector and his men upstairs to the prisoner. He could not
deprive himself of the pleasure of a dig at Ayscough.
"Went one better than you again, Mr. Ayscough," he said, as he laid his
hand on the key of the locked room. "Now if I hadn't seen through my young
gentleman--"
But there, as Melky threw open the door, his words of assurance came to an
end. His face dropped as he stared into an empty room. Yada had risked his
neck, and gone down the water-pipe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE
For the better part of a fortnight the sleuth-hounds of New Scotland Yard
hunted for Mr. Mori Yada in all the likely and unlikely places in London
and sent out their enquiries much further afield. They failed to find him.
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