"Thank you for the flowers. You'll never know just what they did for me.

There was somebody who gave me a thought."

"Kitty, I honestly don't get you. A beauty like you, lonesome!"

"That's it. I am pretty. Why should I deny it? If I'd been homely I

shouldn't have been ashamed to invite my friends to my shabby home. I

shouldn't have cold shouldered everybody through false pride. But where

have you been, and what have you been doing?"

"Official business. But I just missed being a fine jackass. I'll look

into the wallet after I've cleaned up. I'm a mess of gore and dust. Is

it interesting stuff?" dreading her answer.

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"The wallet? I did not look into it. I had no right."

"Ah! Well, I'll be back in two jigs."

He hurried off, relieved to learn that the secret was still beyond

Kitty's knowledge. Of course Hawksley wouldn't carry anything in the

wallet by which his true identity might be made known. Still, there

would be stuff to excite her interest and suspicion. Hawksley had shown

her some of that three hundred thousand probably. What a game!

He would say nothing about his own adventures and discoveries. He worked

on the theory that the best time to tell about something was after it

had become a fact. But no theory is perfect; and in this instance his

reticence was going to cost him intolerable agony in the near future.

Within a quarter of an hour he was back in the living room. Kitty was

out of sight; probably had curled up on the divan again. He would not

disturb her. Hawksley's wallet! He drew a chair under the reading lamp

and explored the wallet. Money and bonds he rather expected, but the

customs appraiser's receipt was like a buffet. The emeralds belonged

honorably to his guest! All his own plans were knocked galley-west by

this discovery.

An odd sense of indignation blazed up in him, as though someone had

imposed upon him. The sport was gone, the fun of the thing; it became

merely official business. To appropriate a pair of smuggled emeralds was

a first-class sporting proposition, with a humorous twist. As it stood

now, he would be picking Hawksley's pocket; and he wasn't rogue enough

for that. Hang the luck!

Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, and diamonds! No doubt many of them

with histories--in a bag hung to his neck--and all these thousands of

miles! Not since the advent of the Gaekwar of Baroda into San Francisco,

in 1910, had so many fine stones passed through that port of entry.




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