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Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith), 1863-1935

"The Middle of Things"

"I don't want you to take these things away now, though,
because we'd like to produce them when these people are brought up
tomorrow morning. But after they've been shown, I'll hand them over--and
in the meantime you can rely on it that they'll be taken care of--rather!
Well, now, here's the missing ring! Hyde, you know, admitted to picking
up one--this is the other, without doubt. And--there's the
fifty-thousand-pound diamond. Of course, Cortelyon robbed Ashton after
he'd killed him as a piece of bluff--what he wanted was these papers. He
evidently gave Cave, or Starr, his accomplice, certain of the papers, to
play the game with, but the really important ones he kept in his own
pocket, where I found 'em. There you are, gentlemen."
He handed over a stout linen-lined foolscap envelope to Mr. Carless, and
that gentleman, whose fingers trembled a little in spite of his
determined attempt to preserve his professional coolness, drew certain
papers from it, and laying them on a desk close by, beckoned the other
men to his elbows, and began to examine them. For several minutes the
four pairs of eyes ran over the various documents, Mr.


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