Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/18

 voice. Not much of a man! Some no 'count white trash, I bet, but mean and trifling. I paid a hundred thousand for them. Here's the slips, how much they weighed and what I paid, but they's a sight more valuable now'n when I bought 'em."

"What'd you keep that much around you for, anyhow?" Grost asked, exasperated to think that any one would have so much wealth in so exposed a place.

"I—I 'lowed that nobody knowed about it, suh." Wrest shook his head. "I—I never 'lowed it'd leak out. Theh's been profit in diamonds! I aimed to sell, directly, and I'd be good interest ahead—I saw it a-coming! Now look 't me!"

He grimaced, but added, cunningly:

"But I got some left!"

"You want us to look after those stones?"

"Yes, sir, I'll spend some money to get them back—I brought this up, to kind of guarantee it—there's two thousand here. You boys look around, and see what you can find. It's kind of funny, that Gole feller turning up missing, and then they got me, right along! You look into it!"

And with that, the quaint old customer of diamond merchant and detective agency hobbled out of the office, leaving the detective to the contemplation of the case, as stated accurately by the old man.