"Mr. Solomon came aboard the Mombasa at London, stating that he was a messenger from John Solomon and proving it quite efficiently. Naturally I did not recognize him, but I turned over to him the papers, and received them in duplicate when I reached Mombasa from the hands of Potbelly.
"They must have been cabled out, but in any case Potbelly has shown himself worthy of trust, except in this one instance of your fraudulent ring. That is all I know, and you can take it back to your master and share the knowledge with him. Now will you go?"
Hammer began to see light for the first time since the conversation began. John Solomon's hurried trip aboard the Mombasa was explained, it seemed; also the conflicting statements of Miss Helmuth began to straighten themselves out.
And yet the thing sounded so incredible! John Solomon, a fat little cockney supercargo, in league with this girl he had only seen once——
"I'll go," he said helplessly, "but I'm going to have this thing out with Krausz and see what screw is loose, Miss Helmuth. I still can't understand your connection with that little rat Solomon—but I'll go."
So he went, without a word more from her, back to the other tent, where he filled his pipe and tried to get the affair into more lucid shape within his own mind. The effort was vain, however.
The one thing that stood out above all others was that Potbelly's recognition of the ring had been in vain, that Sara Helmuth had absolutely no confidence in it, and had a very lively suspicion that he and Krausz were attempting to trick her.
But what about? It was no longer a question of this woman being a prig—Hammer saw deeper than that, at least. There was something underlying it all that vitally affected her.
This much he knew: Krausz had sent her certain papers in a black wallet from the hotel in London, and she had given those papers to Solomon five minutes later, doubtless without reading them. Then Solomon had lied to him about the black wallet, and he had done it artistically, too. The American began to consider Solomon seriously.
"I'll bet a dollar I was right about Schlak's murder," he thought suddenly. "John Solomon put that Arab up to testifying as he did, and whether Jenson worked the same game with Baumgardner—say, I'll run a bluff on that big Dutchman!"