"I'm glad to hear that you are going to like it," David said, drily.
Lockhart's received their customers in the usual courtly style. They were sorry they had no recollection of the transaction to which madam referred. The sale of the bracelet was clear, because that was duly and properly recorded on the books, and as indeed was the sale of the gun-metal cigar-case to an American gentleman at the Metropole. If madam said that she had purchased the cigar-case, why—still the polite assistant was most courteously incredulous.
The production of the letter made a difference. There was a passing of confidences from one plate-glass counter to another, and presently another assistant came forward. He profoundly regretted that there had been a mistake, but he remembered the incident perfectly. It was the day before he had departed on his usual monthly visit to the firm's Paris branch. Madam had certainly purchased the cigar-case; but before the sale could be posted in the stock ledger madam had sent a gentleman to change the case for the diamond bracelet previously admired. The speaker had attended to both the sale and the exchange; in fact, his cab was waiting for him during the latter incident.
"I trust there is nothing wrong?" he asked, anxiously.
"Not in the least," Ruth hastened to reply. "The whole matter is a kind of comedy that I wanted to solve. It is a family joke, you understand. And who made the exchange?"
"Mr. Gates, madam. A tall gentleman, dressed in—"
"That is quite sufficient, thank you," said Ruth. "I am sorry to trouble you over so silly a matter."
The assistant assured madam with an air of painful reproach that nothing was counted a trouble in that establishment. He bowed his visitors out and informed them that it was a lovely afternoon, a self-evident axiom that the most disputatious could not well deny.
"You see how your inquiries might have been utterly baffled but for this find of mine," Ruth said, as the two went along North Street. "We shall find presently that the Metropole American and Reginald Henson are one and the same person."
"And you fancy that he made the exchange at Lockhart's?"