"But, oddly enough, I have rooted objections to deserting my guests."
"Your guests won't be sorry, I imagine," he replied, as he looked at his silver turnip of a watch. "And we're losing good time."
"Please go," said Alice Churchill, emboldened, apparently, by some instinctive conclusion which she could not, or did not care to, explain. And she was backed up, I noticed, by a nod from her brother.
I also noticed, as I rose to my feet, that I still held the necklace in my hand. I was a little puzzled as to just what to do with it.
"That," said the sagacious stranger, "you'd better leave here. Let the young lady keep it until we get back. And you, Fessant," he went on, turning to the belligerent-lipped jewel thief, "you stay right here and make yourself pleasant. And without bein' rude, you might see that the young lady and her brother stay right here with you."
Then he took me companionably by the arm and led me away.
"What's the exact meaning of all this?" I inquired as we threaded our course out to the cab-stand and went dodging westward along Forty-third Street in a taxi. The rain, I noticed, through the fogged window, was still falling.
"I want you to show me exactly where that man sat in that box," was his answer. "And two minutes in the theater will do it."
"And what good," I inquired, "is that going to do me?"
"It may do you a lot of good," he retorted, as he flung open the cab door.