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 go............