Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/85

Rh present moment Léontine had Miss Dalghren's pearls.

The next thing was to get them, and I had no great fear of my ability to do that. I would go to Léontine and give it to her straight that unless she handed them over I would call on the Prefect of Police, and lay information for the rounding up of the whole mob: Ivan, Maxeville, or Chu-Chu le Tondeur, as he was known, the women souris d'hôtel and herself. I would tell her in strong terms that they had played it rotten low on me. Here was I, who a few weeks before had got myself pinched to save their hides, being used as a shield for them to crawl behind when they stole pearls from the house of the people who had saved me a life sentence. This would be a dangerous game for me, I knew, but I never scared worth a cent, and by the time I got to the office I was so tearing mad that I asked nothing better than to take on the whole slimy gang.

So I sent Léontine a pneumatique to say that she could take her choice between meeting me at Bagatelle the next morning at eleven or later in the day at the Prefecture of Police. I knew that she might not be able to get away from Kharkoff in the afternoon or evening, but as he was A.D.C. to one of the Grand Dukes and supposed to report every morning before mid-day, the chances were that the girl could manage a morning rendezvous.

That night, at about eleven, I went into the Automobile Club. There was a baccarat game already going, and meeting an acquaintance, who was manager of a motor concern near our office, the pair of us