The Flaming Jewel

Stormont's gaze questioned him.

Darragh said: "After I telephoned you this morning that a guest of mine at Harrod Place, and I, had been stuck up and robbed by Quintana's outfit, what did you do, Jack?"

"I called up Bill Lannis first," said Stormont, "-- then the doctor. After he came, Mrs. Ray arrived with a maid. Then I went in a spoke to Eve. Then I did what you suggested -- I crossed the forest diagonally toward The Scaur, zig-zagged north, turned by the rock hog-back south of Drowned Valley, came southeast, circled west, and came out here as you asked me to."

"Almost on the minute," nodded Darragh. ... "You saw no signs of Quintana's gang?"

"None."

"Well," said Darragh, "I left my two guests at Harrod Place to amuse each other, got out three couple of my otter-hounds and started them, -- as I hoped and supposed, -- on Quintana's trail."

"What happened?" inquired Stormont curiously.

"Well -- I don't know. I think they were following some of Quintana's gang -- for a while, anyway. After that, God knows, -- deer, hare, cotton-tail -- I don't know. They yelled their bally heads off -- I on the run -- they're slow dogs, you know -- and whatever they were after either fooled them or there were too man trails. ... I made a mistake, that's all. These poor beasts don't know anything except an otter. I just hoped they might take Quintana's trail if I put them on it."

"Well," said Stormont, "it can't be helped now. ... I told Bill Lannis that we'd rendezvous at Clinch's Dump."

"All right," nodded Darragh. "Let's keep to the open; my dogs are leashed couples."

They had been walking for twenty minutes, possibly, exchanging scarcely a word, and they were now nearing the hilly basin where star Pond lay, when Darragh said abruptly: "I'm going to tell you about things, Jack. You've taken my word so far that it's all right----"

"Naturally," said Stormont simply.

The two men, who had been brother officers in the Great War, glanced at each other, slightly smiling.

"Here it is then," said Darragh. "When I was on duty in Riga for the Intelligence Department, I met two ladies in dire distress, whose mansion had been burned and looted, supposedly by the Bolsheviki.

"They were actually hungry an penniless; the only clothing they possessed they were wearing. These ladies were the Countess Orloff-Strelwitz, and a young girl, Theodorica, Grand Duchess of Esthonia. ... I did what I could for them. After a while, in the course of other duty, I found out that the Bolsheviki had had nothing to do with the arson and robbery, but that the crime had been perpetrated by Jose Quintana's gang of international crooks masquerading as Bolsheviki."