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202 "Naturally," agreed Chester. "It's a nuisance, though. I'd rather you didn't say anything about it, but the pearls have been stolen."

Steel flicked the ash from the end of his cigar, but otherwise he did not move for a moment.

"Indeed!" he said at last. "Since when?" He did not wish to appear discourteous to his host, but the story sounded a little fishy.

"Since this morning," Chester declared. "I know you think it queer, and I shouldn't have told you but for our previous conversation. Some of the niggers have got at the things, I expect, though how on earth they knew where to look for them is more than I can understand. I really was awfully glad at the idea of having you join me, but let's forget it," he added, as though determined to dismiss the subject from his mind.

Steel cast a searching glance at the other man. He was puzzled. From the first he had taken a liking to Chester. He was more than half inclined to believe him now, although pearls do not disappear, as a rule, in such places as Tao Tao. In the course of his wanderings through the South Seas he had met some queer customers, ready to play tricks of every imaginable kind. He decided, however, that Chester was no trickster. Steel was sympathetic, yet, in the circumstances, no business deal was possible.

"Look here," he said, "we've got a husky bunch