And there was, of course, the jewel.
It had a history. The fire opal, which seemed to be eternal yet living beauty, had carved upon it the likeness of Dawn’s great-great-grandmother, of whom the girl was the living image.
The talented Oriental craftsman who had chiseled those features which were the essence of beauty — that wily fellow had breathed upon the cameo gem a curse.
The curse: It must not get out of the possession of the family — or else.
Death, deprivation, and a myriad other unpleasantries were predicted if the stone fell into alien hands.
The name of Selden Appopoulis sort of slithered into the tale. This was a fat man, a lecherous fat man, a greedy fat man, who wanted — not loved — Dawn, and who wanted — and loved — the cameo opal. In some fashion that was not exactly clear to the Saint, the fat man was in a position to put a financial squeeze on her. In each succeeding dream of Andrew Faulks, Glendale bank clerk, Dawn’s position became more and more untenable. In desperation she finally agreed to turn the jewel over to Appopoulis. The fat man sent for the jewel by the two henchmen whom the Saint had directed off into the Holbrook-bare woods.
“Now in this dream — this here now dream,” Holbrook said, “I took it away from him, see? Andy Faulks went to sleep in Glendale Saturday night and — say, what day is it now?”
“Tuesday.”
“Yeah, that’s the way it seems to me too. And that’s funny. If you’re really part of this dream you’d naturally think it was Tuesday, because your time and my time would be the same. But you don’t seem like part of a dream. I pinched you and — oh, nuts, I’m all mixed up.”
“Let’s try and be clear about this,” said the Saint patiently. “You know that it’s Tuesday here, but you think you’re dreaming all this in Glendale on Saturday night.”