第20章

Markel turned to Carruthers."I'll let you in on that, too, Carruthers, in a day or two, if you'll send a reporter around--financial man, you know.It'll be worth your while.And now, how about this? What do you say to a little article and the photos next Sunday?"There was a slight hint of rising colour in Carruthers' face.

"If you'll send them to the society editor, I've no doubt he'll be able to use them," he said brusquely.

"Right!" said Markel, and coughed, and patted Carruthers' shoulder patronisingly again."I'll just do that little thing." He picked up the necklace, dangled it till it flashed and flashed again under the light, then restored it very ostentatiously to its case, and the case to his pocket."Thanks awfully, Carruthers," he said, as he rose from his chair."See you again, Dale.Good-night!"Carruthers glared at the door as it closed behind the man.

"Say it!" prodded Jimmie Dale sweetly."Don't feel restrained because you are a guest--I absolve you in advance.""Rotter!" said Carruthers.

"Well," said Jimmie Dale softly."You see--Carruthers?"Carruthers' match crackled savagely as he lighted a cigar.

"Yes, I see," he growled."But I don't see--you'll pardon my saying so--how vulgarity like that ever acquired membership in the St.

James Club."

"Carruthers," said Jimmie Dale plaintively, "you ought to know better than that.You know, to begin with, since it seems he has advertised with you, that he runs some sort of brokerage business in Boston.He's taken a summer home up here on Long Island, and some misguided chap put him on the club's visitor's list.His card will NOT be renewed.Sleek customer, isn't he? Trifle familiar--I was only introduced to him last night."Carruthers grunted, broke his burned match into pieces, and began to toss the pieces into an ash tray.

Jimmie Dale became absorbed in an inspection of his hands--those wonderful hands with long, slim, tapering fingers, whose clean, pink flesh masked a strength and power that was like to a steel vise.

Jimmie Dale looked up."Going to print a nice little story for him about the 'costliest and most beautiful necklace in America'?" he inquired innocently.

Carruthers scowled."No," he said bluntly."I am not.He'll read the NEWS-ARGUS a long time before he reads anything about that, Jimmie."But therein Carruthers was wrong--the NEWS-ARGUS carried the "story"of Markel's diamond necklace in three-inch "caps" in red ink on the front page in the next morning's edition--and Carruthers gloated over it because the morning NEWS-ARGUS was the ONLY paper in New York that did.Carruthers was to hear more of Markel and Markel's necklace than he thought, though for the time being the subject dropped between the two men.

It was still early, barely ten o'clock, when Carruthers left the club, and, preferring to walk to the newspaper offices, refused Jimmie Dale's offer of his limousine.It was but five minutes later when Jimmie Dale, after chatting for a moment or two with those about in the lobby, in turn sought the coat room, where Markel was being assisted into his coat.

"Getting home early, aren't you, Markel?" remarked Jimmie Dale pleasantly.

"Yes," said Markel, and ran his fingers fussily, comb fashion, through his whiskers."Quite a little run out to my place, you know--and with, you know what, I don't care to be out too late.""No, of course," concurred Jimmie Dale, getting into his own coat.

They walked out of the club together, and Markel climbed importantly into the tonneau of a big gray touring car.

"Ah--home, Peters," he sniffed at his chauffeur; and then, with a grandiloquent wave of his hand to Jimmie Dale: "'Night, Dale."Jimmie Dale smiled with his eyes--which were hidden by the brim of his bat.

"Good-night, Markel," he replied, and the smile crept curiously to the corners of his mouth as he watched the gray car disappear down the street.

A limousine drew up, and Benson, Jimmie Dale's chauffeur, opened the door.

"Home, Mr.Dale?" he asked cheerily, touching his cap."Yes, Benson--home," said Jimmie Dale absently, and stepped into the car.

It was a luxurious car, as everything that belonged to Jimmie Dale was luxurious--and he leaned back luxuriously on the cushions, extended his legs luxuriously to their full length, plunged his hands into his overcoat pockets--and then a change stole strangely, slowly over Jimmie Dale.

The sensitive fingers of his right hand in the pocket had touched, and now played delicately over a sealed envelope that they had found there, played over it as though indeed by the sense of touch alone they could read the contents--and he drew his body gradually erect.

It was another of those mysterious missives from--HER.The texture of the paper was invariably the same--like this one.How had it come there? Collusion with the coat boy at the club? That was hardly probable.Perhaps it had been there before he had entered the club for dinner--he remembered, now, that there had been several people passing, and that he had been jostled slightly in crossing the sidewalk.What, however, did it matter? It was there mysteriously, as scores of others had come to him mysteriously, with never a clew to her identity, to the identity of his--he smiled a little grimly--accomplice in crime.

He took the envelope from his pocket and stared at it.His fingers had not been at fault--it was one of hers.The faint, elusive, exquisite fragrance of some rare perfume came to him as he held it.

"I'd give," said Jimmie Dale wistfully to himself--"I'd give everything I own to know who you are--and some day, please God, Iwill know."

Jimmie Dale tore the envelope very gently, as though the tearing almost were an act of desecration--and extracted the letter from within.He began to read aloud hurriedly and in snatches: