few would envy me my task next morning. i called up miss hamerton merely saying that i would come to the hotel half an hour later. sadie came in, but having kept from her what had already happened, i could not tell her this. i was not obliged to tell her all the developments of the case, of course, but she had a moral right to my confidence, and so i felt guilty and wretched every way. sadie i knew would be terribly cut up by the way things were tending, and i had not the heart to face it, with what i had to go through later.

miss hamerton received me with great bright eyes that looked out of her white face like stars at dawn. the instant she caught sight of my face she said: "you have news?"

i nodded.

"good or bad?" she whispered breathlessly.

there was no use beating around the bush. "bad," i said bluntly.

a hand went to her breast. "tell me—quickly."

i drew out the case. she gave no sign of recognising it. i snapped it open. "is this the lost necklace?" i asked.

with a little cry, she seized upon it, examined the pearls, breathed upon them, looked at the clasp. "yes! yes!" she exclaimed, joy struggling in her face with an underlying terror. "where did you get it?"

"out of a safe in mr. quarles' flat."

she looked at me stricken stupid.

i had to repeat the words.

"oh!—you would not deceive me?" she whispered.

"i wish to god it were not true!" i cried.

"in his room—his room!" she muttered. suddenly she sank down in a crumpled white heap on the floor.

i gathered her up in my arms and laid her on the sofa. i called mrs. bleecker, who came running, accompanied by irma's maid. a senseless scene of confusion followed. the foolish women roused half the hotel with their outcries. i myself, carried the beautiful, inanimate girl into her bedroom. for me it was holy ground. it was almost as bare as a convent cell. it pleased me to find that she instinctively rejected luxury on retiring to her last stronghold. i laid her on her bed—the pillow was no whiter than the cheek it bore, and returned to the outer room to await the issue. all this time, i must tell you, mrs. bleecker was relieving her feelings by abusing me. from the first i had apprehended hatred in that lady.

i waited a few minutes, feeling very unnecessary, and wondering if i would not do better to return to my office, when mrs. bleecker came back, and with a very ill grace said that miss hamerton wanted to know if it was convenient for me to wait a little while until she was able to see me, and would i please say whatever was necessary to people who called. i almost wept upon receiving this message. i sent back word that i would stay all day if she wanted me. mrs. bleecker glared at me, almost beside herself with defeated curiosity. i had the necklace safe in my pocket and she was without a clue to what had happened.

so there i was established as miss hamerton's representative. everybody took orders from me, and wondered who i was. the word had spread like wildfire that the famous star had been taken ill, and the telephone rang continuously. i finally told the hotel people what to say, and ordered it disconnected. i had a couple of boys stationed in the corridor to keep people from the door. i sent for two doctors, not that irma was in any need of medical attention, but i wished to have the support of a professional bulletin. i told them what i thought necessary. they were discreet men.

miss hamerton had no close relatives, and i could not see the sense of sending for any others. i forbade mrs. bleecker to telegraph them. in a case of this kind solitude is the best, the most merciful treatment for the sufferer. as it was i pitied the poor girl having to endure the officious ministrations of her inquisitive servants, but i did not feel justified in interfering there.

only two men were allowed past the guard in the corridor, mr. maurice metz, the famous theatrical manager, and mr. alfred mount. the former stormed about the room like a wilful child. his pocketbook was hard hit. i was firm. he could not see miss hamerton, he must be satisfied with my report. miss hamerton had suffered a nervous breakdown—with that phrase we guarded her piteous secret, and it would be out of the question for her to act for weeks to come. it was her wish that the company be paid off and disbanded.

"who the devil are you?" he demanded.

"i speak for miss hamerton," i said with a shrug. i remembered how humbly i had besieged this man's door with my play a few weeks since, and now i was turning him down.

to satisfy him i had mrs. bleecker in. he demanded of her who i was.

"i don't know," she snapped.

nevertheless she had to bear me out. miss hamerton had sent word that the company was to be paid off with two weeks' salary, and the amount charged to her. i referred mr. metz to the doctors. they impressed him with medical phrases he didn't understand. he finally departed talking to himself and waving his hands.

mr. mount, of course, was very different. he came in all suave sympathy, anxious to uphold me in every way. i had wished to see him for a special purpose. i couldn't allow the possibility of a ghastly mistake being made.

i produced the fateful little seal leather box, and snapped it open again. "are these the lost pearls?" i asked.

the man had wonderful self-control. no muscle of his face changed. only his black eyes flamed up. he took the case quietly, but those eyes pounced on the pearls like their prey, and wolfed them one by one. he returned the case to me. a curious smile wreathed the corners of his voluptuous mouth.

"those are the pearls," he said quietly.

"you are sure?"

"sure?" he spread out his hands. "there are no other such pearls in the world."

i returned the case to my pocket.

"where did you find them?" he asked.

"at present i am not free to say how they were recovered," i replied. "no doubt miss hamerton will give it out later."

"i think i understand," he said with a compassionate air. "i suppose there will be no prosecution."

"i do not know," i said blandly.

"maybe it would be better never to speak of the matter to her?" he said softly.

i shrugged. i wasn't going to let him get any change out of me.

"anyhow it's a triumph for you," he said graciously. "allow me to congratulate you."

was there a faint ring of irony in his words? in either case i never felt less triumphant. what booted it to return her jewels if i had broken her heart? i bowed my acknowledgment.

as he left he said: "come and see me sometimes, though the case is closed. you are too valuable a man for me to lose sight of."

i bowed again, mutely registering a resolve to ask him a thumping figure if he ever did require my services.

meanwhile i had the reporters to deal with. i have a strong fellow-feeling for the boys. as a class they are the most human lot of fellows i know. they do not make the rotten conditions of their business. but they certainly are the devil to deal with when they get you on the defensive. they seemed to spread through that hotel like quicksilver, bribing the bell-boys, the maids, even the waiter who brought up my dinner. if we had not been on the eleventh story i should have expected to find them peeping in the windows.

i did not dare see them myself. in my anomalous position they would have made a monkey of me. in my mind's eye i could see the story of the mysterious stranger who claimed to represent miss hamerton, etc., etc. i had to take every precaution, too, to keep them from that fool of a mrs. bleecker. i carefully drilled the doctors in what they should say, and then sent them down to their fate. they came off better than i expected. of course the lurid tales did appear next day, but they were away beside the mark. nothing approaching the truth was ever published.

a little before five everybody had gone, and i was alone in the sitting-room gazing out of the window and indulging in gloomy enough thoughts, when i heard the door behind me open. i turned with a sigh, expecting fresh complaints and demands from the old harridan. but there was irma trying to smile at me. she was wearing a white negligée affair that made her look like a fragile lily. she walked with a firm step, but her face shocked me. it looked dead. the eyes open, were infinitely more ghastly than when i had laid her down with them closed. mrs. bleecker and the maid followed, buzzing around her. she seemed to have reached the limits of her patience with them.

"let me be!" she said as sharply as i ever heard her speak. "i am perfectly well able to walk and to speak. please go back to the bedroom. i have business to discuss with mr. enderby."

they retired, bearing me no love in their hearts.

"i must go away, quite by myself," she said, speaking at random. "can you help me find a place, some place where nobody knows me? if i do not get away from these people they will drive me mad!"

"i will find you a place," i said.

"perhaps i'd better not go alone," she said. "if i could only find the right kind of person. i'm so terribly alone. that nice girl you brought into the company, miss farrell, do you think she would go with me?"

there was something in this more painful than i can convey. "she'd jump at the chance," i said brusquely.

"you have been so good to me," she said.

"you can say that!" i said, astonished.

"oh, i've not quite taken leave of my senses," she said bitterly. "if i had not known the truth, it would have been much worse."

this struck me as extraordinary generosity in a woman who loved.

"i—i have something else to ask of you," she said in the piteous beseeching way that made me want to cast myself at her feet.

"anything," i murmured.

"mr. quarles is coming here at five. please see him and tell him—oh! tell him anything you like, anything that will keep him from ever trying to see me again."

i nodded. "you had better lose no time in getting out of this," i suggested. "can you be ready by to-morrow morning?"

"i will start packing now," she said. "it will give me something to do."

how well i understood the hideous blankness that faced her.

"don't let those women bother you," i said. "refer them to me."

"they mean well," she said.

"i will answer for miss farrell," i said. "she'll be here at nine to-morrow."

she started to thank me again, but i would not let her go on. i really could not stand it.

"very well, you will see," she said with a smile, and left me.

shortly afterwards roland quarles came striding down the hall. i opened the door to him. he was astonished to find a strange man in the room. he did not recognise me without my faxon makeup.

"enderby," i said in response to his enquiring glance. "you met me here once before."

"what's this i hear downstairs about miss hamerton being sick?" he demanded anxiously.

"she has had a nervous breakdown," i said.

he was not deceived. "what does that mean?" he demanded. "she was quite well yesterday."

i shrugged.

"can i see her?"

i shook my head.

"i will speak to mrs. bleecker, then."

"you can't see her, either."

"who are you?" he demanded, as so many others had done.

i gave him my card, hoping that he would take the hint, and save me further explanations.

not a bit of it. "investigator? what does that mean? detective?"

"precisely."

"what's it all about?" he cried irritably. "why are you looking at me like a policeman?"

"look at me close," i said.

he stared at me angry and puzzled. "i have seen you before—more than once——" then his face changed. "faxon!" he cried. "is it faxon?"

"the same," i said.

"what are you doing here?" he demanded.

this parade of innocence began to exasperate me. "do you need to ask?" i said.

"oh, for heaven's sake don't play with words," he burst out. "tell me what's the matter and be done with it."

"miss hamerton's pearl necklace was stolen from the theatre two months ago. she engaged me to recover it."

"her pearls! stolen!" he ejaculated, amazed. i could not have asked to see it better done.

"do you still want me to go on?" i asked.

"oh, drop the mystery!" he cried. "you fellows fatten on mystery!"

"as faxon in the theatre i was perfectly sincere in my friendship for you," i went on. "i liked you. but little by little against my will i was forced to believe that you were the thief."

this touched him, but not quite in the way i expected. "me? the thief?" he gasped—and suddenly burst into harsh laughter. "how did you arrive at that?"

i was no longer inclined to spare him. "in the first place you provoked a bet with miss hamerton which induced her to wear the real pearls on the night they were stolen."

his face turned grave. "true," he said. "i forgot that. what else?"

"on april sixth you deposited forty thousand dollars in cash in the second national bank."

he paled. "anything more?"

"do you care to explain where you got it?" i asked.

"not to you," he said proudly. "go on with your story."

"my first clue was in the cryptic letter found on the stage."

"i remember. you couldn't translate it."

"but i did."

"what's it got to do with me?"

"nothing. but i found a second letter written in the same cryptogram and about the same matters in your pocket."

"that's a lie!" he said.

"if you want to see it it's at my office."

"if you did find such a paper in my pocket it was planted there."

"i should be glad to believe you were not the man," i said mildly.

"spare me your assurances," he said scornfully.

he was silent for a while, thinking over what i had told him. slowly horror grew in his face. "but—but this is only a devilish combination of circumstances," he stammered. "you haven't proved anything."

"the pearls have been recovered," i said.

"where?" he shot at me.

"in your safe."

his legs failed him suddenly. he half fell in a chair, staring at me witlessly. "oh, my god!" he muttered huskily. "those, hers!"

i believe i smiled.

"and you—you have told her this story?" he faltered.

"that's what i was engaged for."

"oh, my god!" he reiterated blankly. "what shall i do!"

his agony was genuine enough. in spite of myself i was moved by it. "better go," i said. "the matter will be hushed up, of course."

"hushed up!" he cried. "never!"

this theatrical pretence of innocence provoked me afresh. "oh, get out!" i said. "and be thankful you're getting off so easily!"

he paid no attention to me. "i must see her," he muttered.

"what do you expect to gain by bluffing now?" i said impatiently. "you must see that the game is up."

"i will not leave here without seeing her," he said with a kind of dull obstinacy.

"you have me at a disadvantage," i said bitterly. "you know i can't have you thrown out without causing a scandal."

he scarcely seemed to hear me. "i will go when she sends me," he muttered.

"all right, my patience is equal to yours," i said.

so there we sat, he with his ghastly white face turned towards the door into the inner rooms, moistening his lips from time to time, i looking out of the window.

to make matters worse, mrs. bleecker came clucking in. she, knowing nothing, fell on quarles' neck, so to speak, and told him all her troubles with sidelong shots at me.

he paid little attention to her vapouring, only repeating in his ghastly, blank way: "i must see irma."

"of course!" said mrs. bleecker. "i'll tell her you're here."

"mrs. bleecker, as a friend, i advise you not to interfere," i said sternly.

she went out, flouncing her skirts at me.

to my surprise, miss hamerton presently came in. i cannot say what led her to do it, perhaps she was hoping against hope that he could defend himself. there was no sign of weakness in her now. her face was as composed as marble. mrs. bleecker did not return.

"irma," he cried, "send this fellow away."

i made haste to go, but she kept me. "mr. enderby must stay," she said. "he is your friend," she added.

he made a gesture of despair. a hideous silence descended on the three of us.

"you asked to see me," she said at last.

"irma, do you believe this of me?" he cried like a soul out of hell.

"i am willing to hear anything you have to say," she murmured.

"what does evidence matter?" he cried. "do you believe me capable of such a thing?"

"am i not forced to?" she said very low.

his head dropped. i never saw such hopeless wretchedness in a man's face. i felt like an executioner.

"speak up!" i said sharply. "we are anxious to believe in you."

he shook his head. "it doesn't matter," he said in a stifled voice. "i doubt if i could clear myself. anyway i shan't try. it—it is killed!"

he bent a look of fathomless reproach on her. "good-bye, irma," he said quietly. "i'm glad i was the means of your getting your jewels back. i never knew they had been stolen."

this to me was the purest exhibition of cheek i had ever met with. i was hard put to it to keep my hands off the man. if she had not been there! he went. and when i turned around irma had gone back into the next room. i was angry through and through, and yet—and yet——! a nagging little doubt teased me.

so ended, as i thought, the case of the blue pearls. little did i suspect what was on the way.