CHAPTER IV
THE RUBY
Unless I wanted affairs to get away from me entirely, it was high time to assume complete control of them, and immediately to abandon all temporizing measures.
I turned Maillot about without ceremony.
"Go with this man to the library, Stodger," I peremptorily directed. "Burke, you come with me."
In the next ten seconds I had the big library table between the two, Burke impassive, while Maillot glared at him savagely. I wanted to give them time to cool—Maillot, at any rate; so I took advantage of the opportunity to scribble a note to the Captain, hinting at the complications promised by Felix Page's death, and requesting that I be permitted to retain Stodger as an assistant—for I liked the stout, cheerful man who was willing and quick to act upon no more than a hint, and at the same time not disposed to interfere at all with my own modes of procedure. This message I gave to him, requesting that he entrust it to either Callahan or O'Brien for delivery. "Tell 'em to clear out," I added; "I have no use for them here."
Then I thrust my hands into my coat pockets, and fell to pacing the floor while I reflected. That is to say, I reflected after I had secured a good, firm grasp upon the thoughts which skurried helter-skelter, like a flushed covey of quail, through my brain.
The Paternoster ruby!
Here was the very thing I had tried so futilely to recall when the Captain first mentioned Felix Page's death!
Like a flash, the phrase had opened up to me an illimitable vista of possibilities. I went over in mind all that I had ever heard of this famous gem, and wondered—indeed, to tell only the bare truth—I thrilled with the very idea: could it have had any part or place in the financier's death?