"_Where_ did you find them?"

"None o' your business."

And that was all they were able to get out of him at the moment.



CHAPTER X

THE BIG GAME

When the police of Mulberry Street find themselves face to face with
some problem other than the trivial, every-day theft, burglary or
murder, as the case may be, they are wont to rise up and run around
in a circle. The case of Red Haney and the diamonds, blared to the
world at large in the newspapers of Sunday morning, immediately
precipitated a circular parade, while Haney, the objective center,
snored along peacefully in a drunken stupor.

The statement of the case in the public press was altogether
negative. There had been no report of the theft of fifty thousand
dollars' worth of uncut diamonds in any city of the United States;
in fact, diamonds, as a commodity in crime, had not figured in
police records for several weeks--not even an actress had mislaid a
priceless necklace. The newspapers were unanimously certain that
stones of such value could not rightfully belong to a man of Haney's
type, therefore, to whom _did_ they belong?

Four men, at least, of the thousands who read the detailed account