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162 I did my best to persuade him to go, if only for the sake of Edith, but he was set as solid as the pyramid of Cheops.

"I've brought all of this mess on both of us," says he. "I'll take the consequences. Besides, this thug knows about me and won't run any unnecessary bother and risk. I'm in no great danger."

Well, sir, there was no budging him, and that made me all the more impatient to get on the warpath after Chu-Chu. It was now not only a measure of self-preservation, but an imperative duty.

Finally, says John, in a dull voice:

"Edith must know the truth."

"Edith must know nothing of the sort," I cried fiercely. "Man, it would kill her—and you know it."

A shiver went through John. "I owe it to you—" he began.

"You owe nothing to me," said I. "You saved me a life sentence. We are quits with each other—but we both owe everything to Edith. Besides, what's the use? She doesn't suspect me."

"She does now," said John, in a hollow voice.

"What?" I cried. "She does? Since when?"

"Since this morning. Mary Dalghren saw me slipping out of the house just after I stole the pearls. She came over from the studio to get something in the house. She took me for you. When I came in at three of the morning she was waiting up. She told me what she had seen and I begged her to say nothing about it to Edith. But this morning she told her. I couldn't stand that. I thought that they would lay the robbery to your old gang, not to you."