"Illness--robbery?" repeated Kennedy, at once interested and
turning a quick glance at me.

I shrugged my shoulders in the negative. Neither the Star nor any
of the other papers had had a word about it.

"Why, what's the trouble?" he continued to Miss Grey.

"You see," she explained, hurrying on, "I'm Mr. Mansfield's
private secretary, and--oh, Professor Kennedy, I don't know, but
I'm afraid it is a case for a detective rather than a doctor." She
paused a moment and leaned forward nearer to us. "I think he has
been poisoned!"

The words themselves were startling enough without the evident
perturbation of the girl. Whatever one might think, there was no
doubt that she firmly believed what she professed to fear. More
than that, I fancied I detected a deeper feeling in her tone than
merely loyalty to her employer.

"Diamond Jack" Mansfield was known in Wall Street as a successful
promoter, on the White Way as an assiduous first-nighter, in the
sporting fraternity as a keen plunger. But of all his hobbies,
none had gained him more notoriety than his veritable passion for
collecting diamonds.

He came by his sobriquet honestly. I remembered once having seen
him, and he was, in fact, a walking De Beers mine. For his
personal adornment, more than a million dollars' worth of gems did
relay duty. He had scores of sets, every one of them fit for a