“Karlov is dead,” he announced. “Started a fight in the taxi, got out, and was making for safety when one of the boys shot him. He hadn't the jewels on him, John. I'm afraid they are gone, unless he hid them somewhere in that—What's the matter, Kitty?”
For Kitty had dropped the salt cellars and pressed her hands against her bosom, her face colourless.
Hawksley, terrified, tried to get up.
“No, no! Nothing is the matter with me but my head.... To think I could forget! Good—heavens!” She prolonged the words drolly. “Wait.”
She turned her back to them. When she faced them again she extended a palm upon which lay a leather tobacco pouch, cracked and parched and blistered by the reactions of rain and sun.
“Think of my forgetting them! I found them this morning. Where do you suppose? On a step of the fire-escape ladder.”
“Well, I'll be tinker-dammed!” said Cutty.
“I've reasoned it out,” went on Kitty, breathlessly, looking at Cutty, “When the anarchist tore them from Mr. Hawksley's neck, he threw them out of the window. The room was dark; his companion could not see. Later he intended, no doubt, to go into the court and recover them and cheat his master. I was looking out of the window, when I noticed a brilliant flash of purple, then another of green. The pouch was open, the stones about to trickle out. I dared not leave them in the apartment or tell anybody until you came home. So I carried them with me to the office. The drums, Cutty! The drums! Tumpitum-tump! Look!”
She poured the stones upon the white linen tablecloth. A thousand fires!
“The wonderful things!” she gasped. “Oh, the wonderful things! I don't blame you, Cutty. They would tempt an angel. The drums of jeopardy; and that I should find them!”