“Only what I’ve told you about its position; I had to watch out for Ottenheimer every moment I was in that store.”
“I see. But while I think of it, providing we do find the stone there, do we turn it over again or—?”
“I gave my word of honor, Jim!”
The shadow of a smile on his face died away before her unyielding solemnity.
“Oh, of course! There’s three hundred pounds on it, anyway, isn’t there?”
She nodded her head in assent.
“But I think we’ve got our trouble before us, and plenty of it, before we see that three hundred pounds,” he said, with a shrug.
“The time’s so short—that is the danger. As I was on the point of telling you, Ottenheimer has an expert diamond-cutter in his shops.”
“And that means he’ll have the apex off our Pear at the first chance, and, accordingly, it means hurry for us. But tell me the rest.”
“Ottenheimer himself owns, I discovered, the double building his store is in. He has his basement, of course, his ground floor show-room and store; and work-rooms, and shipping department, and all that, on the second story. Above them is a lace importer. On the top floor there is a chemical fire-apparatus agency. In the south half of the building, with the hall and stairway between, is an antique furniture store, and above them a surgical supply company. The third and top floors are taken up by two women photographers—their reception room on the third floor, their operating-room, and that sort of thing, on the top floor, with no less than two sky-lights and a transom opening directly on the roof. I arranged for a sitting with them. That is the floor we ought to have, but the building is full. Three doors below, though, there was a top, back studio to let, and I’ve taken it for a month. There we have a transom opening on the roof. I looked through, merely to see if I could hang my washing out sometimes. But barring our roof off from Ottenheimer’s is an ugly iron fencing.”