Carruthers glared at the door as it closed behind the man.
“Say it!” prodded Jimmie Dale sweetly. “Don't feel restrained because you are a guest—I absolve you in advance.”
“Rotter!” said Carruthers.
“Well,” said Jimmie Dale softly. “You see—Carruthers?”
Carruthers' match crackled savagely as he lighted a cigar.
“Yes, I see,” he growled. “But I don't see—you'll pardon my saying so—how vulgarity like that ever acquired membership in the St. James Club.”
“Carruthers,” said Jimmie Dale plaintively, “you ought to know better than that. You know, to begin with, since it seems he has advertised with you, that he runs some sort of brokerage business in Boston. He's taken a summer home up here on Long Island, and some misguided chap put him on the club's visitor's list. His card will NOT be renewed. Sleek customer, isn't he? Trifle familiar—I was only introduced to him last night.”
Carruthers grunted, broke his burned match into pieces, and began to toss the pieces into an ash tray.
Jimmie Dale became absorbed in an inspection of his hands—those wonderful hands with long, slim, tapering fingers, whose clean, pink flesh masked a strength and power that was like to a steel vise.
Jimmie Dale looked up. “Going to print a nice little story for him about the 'costliest and most beautiful necklace in America'?” he inquired innocently.