Real! Ye gods! The thought intoxicated him like champagne. He forgot the cold and wind, his thin clothes, his ravenous hunger. He gave no thought to who the donor might be, or how he had acquired those crisp yellow bills. They were his, every one of them. All he had to do was to buy clothes, to take an apartment at the St. Albans, to dine for a week at the Waldorf! He laughed aloud, and a shivering, frosty-nosed citizen turned and stared after him suspiciously as he hurried down the street.
Lawrence did not see this; nor, seeing, would he have cared. He flew through the snowy streets, and on the doorstep of his lodging house was smitten with a sudden fear for the safety of his treasure. Racing up the two flights of stairs, he darted into his room and tore up the mattress.
The wallet was safe, but what might have been made him tingle all over with a sickening sensation, for he had gone out without even locking his door.
Having turned the key, he sat down on the bed, and opened the wallet. Slowly, deliberately, and with a delicious thrill, he counted the bills. There were fifteen one hundreds, eight fifties, and an odd hundred dollars in twenties and tens.
Evidently the little man in black had been prepared for his acceptance of the extraordinary offer, and the realization brought into Lawrence's mind a swift wonder as to what it could all be about. What reason—what possible reason—could the stranger have for making those astonishing, seemingly absurd, conditions? What purpose would be accomplished by Barry's appearing at the places mentioned for the short space of a week?
Urged on by a fresh curiosity, Lawrence took up the wallet again, to examine it for some mark of identification.
It was of heavy pigskin, finely made, and bearing the stamp of a well-known English firm. That much told nothing; but, in turning it over, Barry noticed something which had escaped his attention before. One corner was bulkier than the rest. His inquiring fingers told him that there was undoubtedly a hard object in one of the numerous compartments of the case.
Eagerly he searched, and at last, slipping his fingers into a slit in the back of the wallet, drew forth a ring.
For a moment he sat staring at it in wonder and admiration, for it was one of the strangest jewels he had ever seen.
A great, square-cut emerald was in the center, and twined about it were two serpents in dull, exquisitely chiseled gold, with tiny flecks of emerald for their eyes. Their heads were slightly raised, and the unknown craftsman had wrought them in amazing similitude to life. With patient cunning he had carved each tiny line of flat, broad head and sinuous, undulating body, until it seemed to Barry as if the things must actually wriggle presently, and dart out forked tongues.