Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/109

Rh private affair, but it was barely possible that he might have turned over the string to Ivan.

I thought hard for a moment, then said to John:

"This is certainly rotten. Here I have gone and got Miss Dalghren's pearls, and now you come and spring it on me that Edith's have been stolen."

"What?" cried John, rousing up. "You've got Mary's pearls?"

"Here they are," said I, and threw the packet on the table. "For Heaven's sake put them in the safe deposit now, and tell her to get a reconstructed string. If these confounded women wouldn't insist on wearing fortunes on their bodies the prisons wouldn't be so crowded." I tell you, my friend, I was hot.

John sat and stared at the packet in a surly sort of way. Then he picked it up, dropped it into his pocket, and gave me a look that didn't help my temper any.

"Well," says he, heavily, "since you've managed to get this string, no doubt you may be able to find the other."

"Oh, you think so, do you?" said I. "Well, if you'd been there to see how easy it was for me to get the first string you might not find it such a cinch to get the second."

"How is that?" he asked. "Don't you think that they were probably both stolen by the same person?"

"Yes," I answered; "I do. But the first was stolen more for spite and to get me back to graft than for the money value. But this second job looks more like theft for its own sake."