For some days, said Yada, he was at a loss what to do with his booty. He
was afraid of attempting to change five hundred pound notes. He made
cautious enquiries as to how that could be done--and he began to think
that the notes were so much waste paper to him. And then Ayscough called
on him--and for the first time, he heard the story of the orange-yellow
diamond.
That gave him an idea. He had a very accurate knowledge of Chinese habits
and characteristics, and he felt sure that Chen Li would have hidden that
diamond in his pig-tail. So he took advantage of his possession of the
detective's card to go to the mortuary, to get a minute or two alone with
the body, and to slip his hand underneath the dead man's silk cap. There
he found the diamond--and he knew that whether the bank-notes were to be
of any value to him or not, the diamond would be if he could only escape
to the Continent.
But--he wanted funds; wanted them badly. He thereupon conceived the bold
idea of getting a reward for his knowledge. He went to the police-station
with a merely modest motive in his mind--fifty pounds would carry him to
Vienna, where he knew how to dispose of the diamond at once, with no
questions asked.
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