THE DIAMOND OF DEATH:
The girl stood frozen under the streetlamp, her borrowed men’s clothes hanging loose on her slender frame. Fear had drained the color from her face, leaving her lips bloodless, her skin pale as bone. Yet despite the tremors running through her, there was defiance in her eyes—a stubborn fire that refused to be snuffed out.
Officer Morris felt a pang of sympathy, but years of police work had calloused his heart. He leaned in, his voice a low hiss.
“Alright, girl. Enough games. What’s going on here?”
She shook her head, lips pressed tight.
“Who are you?”
Silence.
“What were you doing back there?”
Nothing.
“Why did you run?”
Still, not a word.
Morris sighed and pulled out his handcuffs, the steel glinting ominously in the dim light. “Fine. Then you leave me no choice.” He snapped one cuff around her wrist. “You’ll ride in a police car to the station. Maybe there, you’ll start talking.”
Most women would’ve cracked by now. But this girl? She just stood there, trembling yet unbroken, her jaw set like stone.
Then, for the first time, Sydney spoke. His voice was deep, resonant—the kind that slithered under the skin and set nerves on edge.
“Maybe we should go back. See what she was running from.”
Morris hesitated, then nodded. He began patting her down, and she flinched—but didn’t resist.
Then his fingers brushed something hard beneath her coat.
He yanked it free—a small, pearl-handled revolver, its nickel plating gleaming. Morris cracked it open. Two bullets were fired. Four are still loaded.
He lifted the barrel to his nose and inhaled. “Gunpowder. Fresh.” His gaze locked onto hers. “This just got a hell of a lot more serious.”
The girl said nothing.
Morris tightened the cuffs and dragged her back toward the warehouse, his flashlight cutting through the darkness. The beam danced over wooden crates, discarded nets, the black void where the sea swallowed the docks whole.
But Sydney had a better idea. He glanced at his dog. “Find it.”
The animal shot forward, nose to the ground, weaving between shadows. The girl stiffened, pulling against the cuffs—but it was too late.
The dog let out a sharp bark.
Morris swung the light. Between the dog’s paws lay a small black purse, its metal mesh glinting. He reached for it—
The dog snarled, teeth bared.
Sydney snapped a command, and the beast backed down, tail wagging.
Morris snatched up the purse. “This yours?”
No answer.
He popped it open. Sydney angled the flashlight inside.
Powder puff. Handkerchief. Lipstick.
And a small cardboard box—green label, a well-known pill company.
Morris shook it. Heavy. He pried off the lid.
Bullets. Half the box was packed with them, the rest stuffed with cotton. He dug deeper—
And his breath vanished.
The flashlight beam exploded in brilliance, fracturing into a thousand dancing sparks—white, violet, dazzling as Arctic lights.
“Christ alive,” Morris whispered.
A diamond.
Not just any diamond. This one was massive, flawless, its facets drinking in the light and throwing it back in blinding shards.
He stared at the girl, stunned.
She gave a single, bitter shrug.
“The Diamond of Death,” she said, as casually as naming a bedtime story.
Then her lips sealed shut again.
Fifteen minutes later, Detective Sam Frankley arrived, his sharp eyes scanning the scene—the warehouse, the purse, the diamond, the silent girl.
Sydney gave his account: He’d seen a man emerge from the shadows, hurl something toward the water—only for it to land short, clattering onto the dock. The man had bolted. Sydney had assumed Morris would catch him.
But then the chase began.
And the whole time, Sydney had thought the fugitive was a man.
Frankly frowned. “Then why the hell was she running?”
The girl stayed mute.
Maybe she’d meant to toss the purse into the sea—diamond, bullets, and all—burying the evidence forever.
But fate had other plans.
The purse had missed the water by inches.
And now?
Now the Diamond of Death had been found.
TO BE CONTINUED…
(Adapted from Earl Stanley Gardner’s “The Mystery of the Missing Body“)