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anniversary gift. He said, “Well, put it on. It’s time we started to the concert.” He crossed over to her and took the bracelet from the case and fastened it around her arm.
    She looked up and smiled and said, “Thanks for putting it on for me the very first time I wear it.” She picked up her white velvet evening wrap and put it around her shoulders. The shirred collar stood up around the back of her head, tapering down to form lapels in front. Celia looked in the mirror, her arm extended slightly, and decided she looked the prettiest she had ever looked in all her life. A joyous thrill ran through her when she saw Mark’s admiring eyes reflected in the mirror. He was proud of her proud to walk beside her and have her recognized as Mrs. Mark Dustin.
    As they passed through the main lobby downstairs, people turned their heads to watch them. Celia walked slowly and sedately beside her husband, her right hand lightly touching his arm, the evening wrap open in front to display the bracelet on her left wrist. In the car, she relaxed with a happy little sigh, and could scarcely wait until they were beyond earshot of the doorman to say ecstatically, “Mr. Voorland was certainly right, darling. Did you see the way they stared at the bracelet as though they had never seen a star ruby before?”
    “They were looking at you,” he told her with an indulgent chuckle as he swung onto Collins Avenue.
    There was little southbound traffic, and a round moon hung low in the sky, shedding its silvery sheen over the ocean and the tropical verdure lining both sides of the avenue.
    An automobile came up behind them swiftly. Dustin was driving far over in the right-hand lane, loafing along at twenty miles an hour, his left hand loosely on the steering-wheel and his right arm around Celia.
    The oncoming car came abreast of them, much closer than was necessary on the almost deserted avenue, then swerved abruptly as though out of control to crash into the left front wheel of Dustin’s roadster.
    The impact of the heavy limousine drove the roadster off the pavement to smash head-on into the trunk of a royal palm on the edge of the right-of-way.
    Celia screamed and Mark Dustin cursed angrily as the steering-wheel spun out of his lax hand.
    The limousine ground to a stop beyond them and both doors, swung open to disgorge three men who raced back to the roadster before either occupant could open a door to get out.
    The three men were masked with handkerchiefs, and all three held pistols in their hands. The first to reach Dustin’s side jerked the door open and rammed a muzzle against his side. “Take it easy,” he said, “and you won’t get hurt.”
    Dustin sat where he was, immobile but not unvocal. The other two men circled the car to Celia’s side. One of them opened the door and said, “Stick out your arm, lady.”
    “Don’t do it, Ceil.” Dustin’s voice was thick with anger. “There’ll be someone along. They won’t dare—”
    The man who had spoken to Celia leaned past her and smashed the barrel of his gun down the westerner’s face. The front sight had been filed to sharpness and it laid his cheek open from temple to jaw.
    “Good going,” the man beside Dustin muttered as the victim slumped back with blood streaming from the gash. “Get the stuff off the girl fast.”
    Celia was screaming hysterically and kicking. The two men jerked her out of the car and one of them used a pair of snippers on the linked platinum. It parted easily, and they threw her aside to the ground. The third man had been going through Dustin’s pockets. He found the wad of bills in a side pocket, held together with a silver clip. He extracted them as the others raced around to join him. They all leaped for the open doors of the limousine as Dustin half fell from the roadster and staggered after them, cursing incoherently. He was half-blinded with pain and with shock, but the life he had led had not fitted him to accept such an outrage without