What Alston Choate did, after ten minutes' frowning thought, was to sit down and write a note to Madame Beattie. But as he dipped his pen he said aloud, half admiring and inconceivably irritated: "The little devil!" He sent the note to Madame Beattie by a boy charged to give it, if possible, into her hand, and in an hour she was there in his office, ostrich plumes and all. She was in high feather, not adequately to be expressed by the plumes, and at once she told him why.
"I believe that little wild-fire's been here to see you already. Has she? and talking about necklaces?"
Madame Beattie was sitting upright in the office chair, fanning herself and regarding him with a smile as sympathetic as if she had been the cause of no disturbing issue.
"You'll pardon me for asking you to come here," said Alston. "But I didn't know how to get at you without Mrs. Blake's knowledge."
"Of course," said Madame Beattie composedly. "She was there when the note came, and curious as a cat."
"I see," said Alston, tapping noiselessly with his helpful paper knife, "that you guess I've heard some rumours that—pardon me, Madame Beattie—started from you."
"Yes," said she, "that pretty imp has been here. Quite right. She's a clever child. Let her stir up something, and they may quiet it if they can."
"Do you mind telling me," said Alston, "what this story is—about a necklace?"
"I've no doubt she's told you just as well as I could," said Madame Beattie. "She sat and drank it all in. I bet ten pounds she remembered word for word."
"As I understand, you say—"