"Yet a week or so ago, that necklace was brought into your store by a man who was considering the purchase of it. He submitted it to Freer. Freer pronounced the stones genuine, and said that the necklace was worth about twelve thousand."
Mr. Dunsany jumped up and paced the room agitatedly. "Freer!" he exclaimed. "Impossible! You are sure of your facts!"
I described the operations of Messrs. Sanford and Jones.
"Not impossible, I suppose," he said more quietly. "This sort of thing has happened to me before. I doubt if there was ever a time when I was not harboring some thief or another. They never steal from me, you understand. They are the pickets, the outposts, who watch where the jewels go, and report to Headquarters. But Freer! He had been with me ten years. He had an instinct for pearls!"
"Headquarters?" I said eagerly. "Then you agree with me that there is an organised gang at work?"
"That's no secret," he said. "Every jeweller knows that there is a kind of corporation of jewel thieves. It is probably ten years old, and better organised and administered than our own association."
"Why don't you break it up?"
"Break it up!" he echoed. "It is my dearest ambition! There has never been a meeting of our association but what I have urged with all my eloquence that we get together and break up the thief trust. They will not support me. Everybody suspects that he has spies in his establishment, perhaps like Freer in a responsible position. The crooks seem to have us where they want us. They have never robbed us, you see. There is a sort of unwritten agreement, you leave us alone and we'll leave you. The other men in the association say: 'If our customers are careless with their jewels, we are not responsible.' But I say we are! These crooks have put us in a position where, if we do not go after them, we may be said to be in league with them."
"Mr. Mount is a member of the association, I suppose?"
"Mount? Oh yes, he's the president. To give Mount credit I must say that he has always supported me in this matter, though not so warmly as I would have liked. But I am considered a fanatic."