"I don't know," she whispered. Her fingers went to toying with the little heart lying against her throat.
Suddenly Larry was striding forward, to stand looking down at the jewel with blazing eyes. "Damn that thing!" he gritted. "You're going to turn it over to me right now. I don't know what it is, but I'll swear it's alive with some deadly force of its own. It's glowing like a piece of red radium!"
Ann's waxen fingers closed over it. "You're talking like an insane man, Larry!" she panted. "You may as well understand right now that I'm not taking orders from you like a stevedore. If I want to wear a simple piece of jewelry, no amount of your ranting will prevent me!"
Larry's cheeks grew scarlet, his fists knotting up hard. "Maybe it won't," he retorted, "but by Heaven, Carlyle knows the secret of that stone and I'm going to wring it out of him right now!"
"Larry!" The girl's voice followed him, laden with sharp fear. Larry Wolfe ignored her cry and strode to the loading deck. What he contemplated was mutiny, perhaps, but it was Ann's life at stake.
Carlyle was not on the loading deck, nor did Larry locate him on the bridge. As a final resort he strode to the ship owner's room. The door was unlocked, and he barged in without knocking.
Staring angrily about him, he saw no sign of his quarry. Then a sort of madness laid hold of him. He began to ransack Carlyle's belongings, searching—what he sought, he couldn't have said. But he was seeking proof that Thaddeus Carlyle was something more than he represented himself to be.
There was nothing he wouldn't have expected to find there. Nothing but one small article: an oval-shaped brooch of yellowed ivory, a tiny painting of a man's head on it. He had examined similar ones in museums. Carrying it over to the light, Larry was shocked to note the resemblance of the man's face to Carlyle.
Then he found the minute, hair-line script below it: "Thaddeus Carlyle, Lord Mon—" The last word had been obliterated by time. Larry's breath rattled in his throat as a queer panic gripped him. Feverishly he shoved stiff fingers through his hair. Lord Monfort—! They hadn't made miniatures like this one for hundreds of years.
Larry turned the brooch over and discovered on the back the words: "From Helene. Nov. 1346."