"I don't know what to make of it," answered Minot truthfully. He was suddenly conscious of the necklace in his inside coat pocket.
"Then all I can say, my dear Watson," replied Mr. Paddock with burlesque seriousness, "is that you are unmistakably lacking in my powers of deduction. Give me a cigarette, and I'll tell you the name of the man who is gloating over those diamonds to-day."
"All right," smiled Minot. "Go ahead."
Mr. Paddock, reaching for a match tray, spoke in a low tone in Minot's ear.
"Martin Wall," he said. He leaned back. "You ask how I arrived at my conclusion. Simple enough. I went through the list of guests for possible crooks, and eliminated them one by one. The man I have mentioned alone was left. Ever notice his eyes—remind me of Manuel Gonzale's. He's too polished, too slick, too good to be true. He's traveled too much—nobody travels as much as he has except for the very good reason that a detective is on the trail. And he made friends with simple old Harrowby on an Atlantic liner—that, if you read popular fiction, is alone enough to condemn him. Believe me, Dick, Martin Wall should be watched."
"All right," laughed Minot, "you watch him."
"I've a notion to. Harrowby makes me weary. Won't call in a solitary detective. Any one might think he doesn't want the necklace back."
After breakfast Minot and Paddock played five sets of tennis on the hotel courts. And Mr. Minot won, despite the Harrowby diamonds in his trousers pocket, weighing him down. Luncheon over, Mr. Paddock suggested a drive to Tarragona Island.
"A little bit of nowhere a mile off-shore," he said. "No man can ever know the true inwardness of the word lonesome until he's seen Tarragona."
Minot hesitated. Ought he to leave the scene of action? Of action? He glanced about him. There was less action here than in a Henry James novel. The tangle of events in which he was involved rested for a siesta.