Blood on the Stars (16 page)

Turning back toward the bedroom door, he was met by Miss Naylor who came out and closed the door gently but firmly. “Miss Hamilton has gone to sleep again. Rest and quiet is all she needs now.”

“Will you be able to stay here with her?”

“Dr. Price will be looking in soon. If he can’t get a relief nurse, I can rest here on the couch with the door open so I’ll hear her if she calls. Get along with your detecting if that’s what you want to do,” she ended with a bright smile.

“Do you know how to shoot a revolver?” Shayne asked.

Miss Naylor went over to the table and picked up the heavy weapon, released the cylinder and swung it out, revealing six cartridges. She snapped the cylinder back and lifted it with one hand. “Nice balance,” she said. “Most of these double-actions don’t carry enough weight in the muzzle.”

“Amazing,” said Shayne. “Do all trained nurses like to play gin rummy and know the fine points of firearms?”

“Probably not.
I was an army nurse.”

“You’re marvelous,” said Shayne fervently. “I don’t know why I bothered to ask for a police guard last night.”

Miss Naylor chuckled. “I won a few bucks from him,” she reminded Shayne, her eyes twinkling.

“I’ll leave you on guard this time. Don’t let anyone in except the doctor or me. No one,” he went on with emphasis. “Whoever attacked Miss Hamilton last night must realize she is alive and capable of identifying him. He may come back.”

Outside the hotel, he got in his car and drove across the Venetian Causeway to Miami Beach. Walter
Voorland
lived in a large apartment near the bay and a little south of the Causeway. He was a bachelor, and had maintained the apartment for years, and Shayne had visited him on occasion in the past.

Voorland’s
colored man met him at the door when he rang the bell. If he was surprised to see the detective at this early hour his face didn’t show it. He said, “Come right in,
Mistuh
Shayne.
Mistuh
Voorland
is taking a shower right now.”

He led the detective into a big square living-room where two good paintings were hung on the wall and a few carefully selected
objets
d’art
were tastefully displayed. The furnishings were masculine and luxurious. Shayne went across to long French doors leading out onto an iron-railed balcony and stood there thoughtfully smoking a cigarette while the Negro went to inform the jeweler that he had an early visitor.

He smoked two cigarettes before
Voorland
showed up in a gray bathrobe and sandals, his ruddy face shining with good health and the effects of a cold shower.

“Shayne!” he exclaimed. “I suppose it’s something about the bracelet. Have you recovered it?”

“Not quite.” Shayne walked over to a table and crushed out the cigarette. “Sorry to bother you so early, but I need a little dope.”

“Not at all.
Glad to help any way at all. What sort of information do you want?”

“Two or three things,” said Shayne. “First, do you remember the stones you sold to a couple of men named King and Kendrick?
A few years ago.”

“Certainly.
Here, have a seat.” He indicated two chairs companionably close together and sat down. Shayne sat down and stretched his long legs out. “Two of the finest star rubies that have ever passed through my hands,”
Voorland
resumed. “King purchased a ring and Kendrick a pendant.
Truly remarkable stones.”

“Do you know that both of those were stolen shortly after you sold them—and never recovered?”

“I believe you’re right. Yes, I do recall that. You begin to interest me.”

“Is there the slightest possibility that either of those stones were fakes?”

“Not the slightest.”
Voorland
seemed
neither surprised nor angry, merely certain of his judgment
.

“I’d like to know how you can be so sure,” Shayne persisted. “I recall hearing you tell Mr. and Mrs. Dustin that synthetic stones will stand practically every chemical test.”

“Practically every test,”
Voorland
agreed. “But there are certain tests no synthetic stone can meet.”

“But suppose those tests weren’t applied,” Shayne argued. “Suppose, for instance, you bought a stone from a reputable dealer. You’d take his word for its being genuine. Suppose he, in turn, had taken another man’s word for the stone—and so on down the line—with no one bothering to make those tests.”

Voorland
smiled whimsically. “As a matter of fact, exactly that thing has happened. It is a well-known yarn in the trade. An Amsterdam dealer bought a large ruby from an exiled Russian Grand Duchess whom he knew personally. It was consigned to a firm in Paris, who in turn passed it on to a London expert, and he sold it to an American retailer.
All honest men.
Yet, the ruby was synthetic. Each expert along the line had trusted the other to have applied the necessary tests.”

Shayne spread out his hands. “There you are. How can you be so sure—?”

“That a star ruby must be genuine?
Because they cannot be manufactured, Mike. The synthetic process makes such a thing
an impossibility
.”

“Explain that to me. Just what is the process?”

Walter
Voorland
fished in the pocket of his robe for a stick of gum. He peeled the paper off and thrust the gum in his mouth, made a few smacking
sounds,
then placed both hands precisely on his knees.

“The present successful process is known as the
Verneuil
Process and was perfected by Professor
Verneuil
in nineteen hundred and two. He had been working on it with others for many years.
Ebelman
,
Fremy
and
Feil
, Eisner and
Debray
. The making of artificial rubies attracted more scientists than other gems because rubies have the peculiar property of losing color under great heat, only to regain it when they cool. Other gems do not regain their natural color after excessive heat.

“The first successful method was to take small, inferior Burma gems and grind them into a fine powder. By subjecting this powder to terrific heat and pressure, the powdered stones were fused into one large one.
Actually, a real ruby.
With every chemical property still intact.
Nothing added and nothing taken away.”
Voorland
paused and chewed his gum while Shayne waited for him to continue.

“A ruby is actually nothing more than crystallized corundum.
Alumina, basically, with a small amount of chromium oxide to give it the characteristic color.
So
Verneuil
went back to nature and used powdered alumina itself, adding enough chromium oxide to produce the exact color desired. These are fused at intense heat in a complicated furnace apparatus and a mass is formed which is called a
boule
or
birne
.

“I could go on like this for hours,” the expert said with a slight show of impatience, “but I’m sure you get the important point. It is simply a physical impossibility to produce
synthetically
a stone which has the natural faults we call asterism.
The star ruby.
This may surprise you, but a star ruby is actually a faulty stone. Crystallization under natural conditions has not been perfect. The conditions producing asterism simply cannot be reproduced in the laboratory.”

Shayne drew his legs up and crossed one knobby knee over the other. “I’m convinced,” he said. “It was a nebulous theory at best.
Just happened to fit one set of facts.
What I’d like to know is this: How do you account for the fact that neither the King
ring
nor the Kendrick pendant were ever recovered by the insurance companies—and have never turned up in any of the gem markets of the world?”

“There’s only one logical answer. They somehow made their way into the hands of private collectors who knew they were stolen and glory in possession of them. The worship of precious gems is a curious thing, Mike, and sometimes an unhealthy one. Many of the best known stones in history have disappeared from human sight for hundreds of years, only to reappear again centuries later with no record having been kept of their peregrinations. Collecting gems becomes a mania with some men.
Possessing them utterly.
Destroying their moral senses and all responsibility toward society.”

“Men like the Rajah of
Hindupoor
?” Shayne suggested.

Walter
Voorland’s
big jaws suddenly ceased their regular
masticatory
process. A mask seemed to drop into position over his big features.

“What about the Rajah of
Hindupoor
?”

“I’d like to know what you and he talked about at midnight,” Shayne said quietly.

DIRTY NOSES

“I’VE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT,” said
Voorland
coolly.

“Your visit to the Rajah’s suite at the Waldorf Hotel last night.”

“What makes you think I did that?”

“He telephoned you from the hotel and you went right out to see him, using the name of Smith. What did he want?”

“Really, Shayne, this prying into my private affairs—is that quite ethical?”

“Anything is ethical in a murder case.”

“Murder?
You don’t mean—Mr. Dustin’s injuries didn’t appear serious last evening.”
Voorland
began slowly chewing his gum again.

“It was Mrs. Dustin who got it,” Shayne told him. “Haven’t you seen the morning paper?”

“No. This is shocking news. Is there any connection with the bracelet?”

“Definitely.
I’m the only one who knows about your midnight visit to the Rajah. You can tell me about it if you like. Otherwise you can tell the police.”

“Really, Shayne, I’m afraid I don’t see why my visit to the Rajah has any connection with Mrs. Dustin’s murder.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t. On the other hand, there may be a very definite connection.”

“What gives you that idea? Am I under surveillance? Is the Rajah?”

“Not exactly.
I’ve been digging into a lot of angles.”

“I demand that you tell me why you feel the Rajah is involved,” said
Voorland
sternly.

“I’ll lay it on the line,” Shayne agreed. “The Rajah of
Hindupoor
is just the sort of unscrupulous collector you mentioned as being the probable recipient of the King and Kendrick rubies. In fact, his reputation as a gem miser is such that you refused to even let him look at the ruby bracelet in your shop a couple of weeks ago.”

“That’s quite true. You do have a way of picking up odd bits of information,”
Voorland
said with reluctant admiration tingeing his voice. “He is the sort of private collector whom I detest with all my soul. Once let him get his grasping hands on a fine gem and it disappears into his vaults and is never seen again. Precious stones were made to bring happiness and pleasure to people. They deserve to be displayed and admired.”

“Yet you hurried out to see him last night as soon as he telephoned you.”

Voorland
hesitated, munching slowly and quietly on his gum. “I had a very good reason.”

“What reason?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Would you rather tell the police?” Shayne asked harshly.

Voorland
lifted his hands from his knees in a gesture of helplessness. “I assure you our conversation was confidential and had nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Dustin’s death.”

“But it did have something to do with the ruby bracelet?”

Voorland’s
large mouth tightened obstinately. “I can’t tell you what we discussed.”

Shayne said, “I can have you both arrested and locked up until you decide to talk.”

Beads of perspiration stood out on
Voorland’s
face. His eyes and tone were cold when he said, “That’s absurd. You can’t possibly suspect either of us of complicity in murder.”

Shayne sighed. “I make a point of suspecting everyone and everything. I see it this way: I believe the gang had a buyer for the bracelet when they snatched it—and the Rajah is a logical candidate. At ten o’clock last night they had no intention of dickering with the insurance company for a reward. Something happened during the next few hours that caused them to change their minds. Why did they decide not to deal with the Rajah? Did you get to them first, Walter? And did the Rajah find it out? Is that why he sent for you suddenly?”

“Is the insurance company offering a reward?” countered the jeweler.

“I don’t know.” Shayne brushed the question aside. “The way things are shaping up now, I don’t believe we’ll have to pay a reward. I think I can put my hands on the bracelet right now without paying anybody off.”

“That’s wonderful,”
Voorland
said. “How did you manage it so quickly?”

“I’m asking the questions,” Shayne told him angrily. “This is your last chance to tell me what the Rajah wanted. Without that information I’m going to bull this thing through on a hunch—and God help anyone who stands in my way.”

“Give me time to think this over, Mike,” begged
Voorland
. “If I decide that any information I have has the slightest bearing on Mrs. Dustin’s death, I give you my word of honor I won’t withhold it.
In order to decide that, you must explain how she died.”

Shayne studied the jeweler’s face for a full sixty seconds. The man was badly shaken and he was frightened, but Shayne believed he was telling the truth. He didn’t believe
Voorland
had realized that murder was involved until he, himself, had informed him. Despite his fanatical desire to recover the bracelet, Shayne decided that
Voorland
would draw the line at protecting a murderer.

He nodded and gave a brief account of the manner in which Celia Dustin had met her death.
Voorland
listened attentively, and when Shayne finished, he got up to stride across the room and back.