She nodded, started to speak.
Druse interrupted her: “Are the rubies themselves — I mean intrinsically, as stones — awfully important to you? Or was this grandstand play of yours — this business of threatening Crandall — motivated by rather less tangible factors-such as self-respect, things like that?”
She smiled faintly, nodded. “God knows how I happen to have any self-respect left — I’ve been an awful ass — but I have. It was the idea of being made such a fool — after I’ve lost over a hundred thousand dollars to Crandall — that made me do it.”
Druse smiled. “The rubies themselves,” he said — “I mean the rubies as stones — entirely apart from any extraneous consideration such as self-respect — would more seriously concern Mister Hanan, would they not?”
She said: “Sure. He’s always been crazy about stones.”
Druse scratched the tip of his long nose pensively. His eyes were wide and vacant, his thick lips compressed to a long downward curved line. “You are sure you were followed when you left Crandall’s Wednesday?”
“As sure as one can be without actually knowing — it was more of a followed feeling than anything else. After the idea was planted I could have sworn I saw a dozen men, of course.”
He said: “Have you ever had that feeling before — I mean before you threatened Crandall?”
“No.”
“It may have been simply imagination, because you expected to be followed — there was reason for you to be followed?”