“Raining!” murmured James Darcy, as he reached over to switch on the light above the little table where he set precious stones into gold and platinum of rare and beautiful designs.  “Raining and cold!  I wish the steam was on.”

The fog from outside seemed to have penetrated into the jewelry shop.  It swirled about the gleaming showcases, reflected from the cut glass, danced away from the silver cups, broke into points of light from the times of forks, became broad splotches on the blades of knives, and, perchance, made its way through the cracks into the safe, where it bathed the diamonds, the rubies, the sapphires, the aqua marines, the pearls, the jades, and the bloodstones in a white mist.  The bloodstones—­

Strange that James Darcy should have thought of them as he looked at the rain outside, heard its drip, drip, drip on the windows, and saw the fog and swirls of mist inside and without the store.  Strange and—­

First, as he gazed at the prostrate body—­the horrid red blotch like a gay ribbon in the white hair—­he thought the small, insistent sound which seemed to fill the room was the beating of her heart.  Then, as he listened, his ears attuned with fear, he knew it was the ticking of the watch in the hand of the dead woman.

James Darcy rubbed his eyes, as though to clear them from the fog.  He rubbed them again—­he passed his hand before his face as if cobwebs had drifted there—­he touched his ears, which seemed not a part of himself.

“Tick-tick!  Tick-tick!  Tick-tick!”

The sound seemed to grow louder.  It was not her heart!

“Hello!  Come here, somebody!  Amelia! what’s the matter?  Sallie!  Sallie Page!  Wake up!  Hello, somebody!  She’s dead!  Killed!  There’s been a murder!  I must get the police!”

James Darcy started to cross the room to reach and fling open the front door leading to the street, that he might call the alarm to others than the deaf cook, who had not yet come downstairs.  Mrs. Darcy’s maid had gone away the previous evening, and was not expected in until noon.  It was too early for any of the jewelry clerks to report.  Yet Darcy felt he must have some one with him.

To cross the store to reach the door meant stepping over the body—­the grotesquely twisted body, with the white, upturned face and the little spot of red, near where the silver comb had fallen from the silvered hair.  And so Darcy changed his mind—­he ran to the side door, fumbled with the lock, flung back the portal, and then rushed out in the rain and drizzle, the fog streaming after mm as he parted the mist like long, white streamers of ribbon, such as they suspend at the door for the very young or the aged.

“Hello!  Hello!” shouted Darcy into the silent rain and mist of the early morning street, now deserted save for himself.

The glistening asphalt, the gleaming trolley rails, the dark and damp buildings seemed to echo back his words.