



Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by
Google Books (University of California Library--Los Angeles)











Transcriber's Notes:
     1.Page scan source:
        https://books.google.com/books?id=Rm9LAQAAMAAJ
        (University of California Library--Los Angeles)

     2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






THE PEACOCK OF
JEWELS

BY
FERGUS HUME

AUTHOR OF
"THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB," "THE RED WINDOW,"
"THE YELLOW HOLLY," "THE SEALED MESSAGE,"
"THE DISAPPEARING EYE," ETC., ETC.



G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS      NEW YORK






_Copyright_, 1910, _By_
G W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

THE PEACOCK OF JEWELS






CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.       THE ROTHERHITHE CRIME.
II.      AT THE VICARAGE.
III.     A STORY OF THE PAST.
IV.      AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
V.       THE LETTER.
VI.      THE BOARDING-HOUSE.
VII.     YULETIDE.
VIII.    AN EXPLANATION.
IX.      ANOTHER TRAIL.
X.       MR. SORLEY'S JEWELS.
XI.      JOTTY.
XII.     AN INDIAN CLIENT.
XIII.    AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
XIV.     FACE TO FACE.
XV.      THE BLACK BAG.
XVI.     MISS INDERWICK'S EXCURSION.
XVII.    THE SECRET.
XVIII.   THE TREASURE HUNT.
XIX.     AT DAWN.
XX.      WHO IS GUILTY?
XXI.     THE TRUTH.
XXII.    CALM AFTER STORM.






THE PEACOCK OF JEWELS




CHAPTER I
THE ROTHERHITHE CRIME


To find Barkers Inn was much the same to an ordinary person as looking
for a needle in the proverbial haystack. Dick Latimer, however,
knew its exact whereabouts, because he lived there, and on this
foggy November night he was making for it unerringly with the homing
instinct of a bee. Leaving Fleet Street behind him, somewhere about
eleven-thirty, he turned into Chancery Lane, and then struck off to the
right down a by-road which narrowed to an alley, and finally ended in a
cul-de-sac. Here the young man hurried through the rusty iron gates of
a granite archway, and found himself in an oblong courtyard paved with
cobble-stones and surrounded by tumble-down houses with steep roofs of
discolored tiles. A few steps took him across this to a crooked little
door, which he entered to mount a crooked little staircase, and in one
minute he was on the first-floor landing, where a tiny gas-jet pricked
the gloom with a bluish spot of light. Hastily using his latchkey,
he admitted himself through a door on the left into a stuffy dark
passage, technically called the entrance hall. Eventually entering the
sitting-room, he hurled himself into a creaking basket-chair, and gave
thanks to the gods of home that he had arrived.

The friend with whom Latimer shared these Barkers Inn chambers was
seated by the fire clothed comfortably in a suit of shabby old
flannels, reading a letter and smoking a briar-root, complacently at
ease. He nodded when Dick stormed into the room, and spoke with his
pipe between his teeth.

"Beastly night, isn't it?" remarked Mr. Fuller, who had been spending
the evening at home very pleasantly.

"You'd say much more than that, Alan, my boy, if you'd been out in the
fog," retorted Latimer. "Bur-r-r I'm glad to be indoors and to find you
still out of bed at the eleventh hour. I've had adventures: official
adventures."

"Connected with your employment as a journalist, I suppose," said
Fuller in a lazy manner, and tucking the letter into his breast pocket,
"but seriously speaking, Dicky, are adventures to be found in this
over-civilized city?"

"Romance stalks the London streets, more or less disguised as the
commonplace, my son. I can a tale unfold, but sha'n't do so until
I change my kit and have a Scotch hot on the way to my mouth. Is
the water boiling?" he demanded, directing his gaze towards the
old-fashioned grate where a small black kettle fumed and hissed on the
hob.

"It's been boiling for me," said Fuller, indicating an empty tumbler at
his elbow, "but I've enough water for your needs."

"I only hope you've left enough whisky, which is far more precious.
Poke up the fire and warm my slippers and make a fuss over me. I want
to be fussed," said Dick plaintively, as he retreated to his bedroom