"Oh, was it you?" exclaimed Nick. "The fellow was telling me a lady wanted to stay——"
"Then it's you they've stuffed into a laundry!"
"I like it," Nick assured her. "It's a mighty clean place. I wish you could see some of the holes I've slept in—that is, I don't wish so! But it's all right. And now, just say how much money you want. Anything up to three thousand dollars I can give you in a minute——"
"Oh, not nearly so much. A few hundreds. But I'm going to lunch now. Would you care to lunch at the same table, and we can arrange about the loan? Also you can tell me more of Dutchy."
"I'd like it better than anything," said Nick. "But first I've got to fix things about your bag with the police. I'll be back, and look you up by the time you're halfway to dessert. I remember just what that bag was like, because—maybe you've forgotten—I picked it up in the hotel hall when you dropped it. I can see it as plain as if it was here. 'Twas a kind of knitted gold, like chain armour for a doll. And there was a rim all smothered in diamonds and blue stones."
"Sapphires," said Angela.
"That's right. Well, I'll be back in twenty minutes."
It was useless to protest against his going, for he had gone before she could speak. And instead of beginning luncheon, Angela went upstairs to take from its diamond frame her father's miniature. On the gold back of this frame there was an inscription: "Angela, on her eleventh birthday, from her father. The day before she sails." And it was because of the inscription that she could not have offered the frame to an ordinary person as security, no matter how desperately she had wanted a loan. But Mr. Nickson Hilliard was not an ordinary person.