"Oh, I'm not kicking you out," I said smiling. "I shall keep in touch with you. Would you like to see this woman go to jail?"
"Would I?" he cried, jumping up. Words failed him. "Oh—! Oh, just try me, that's all!"
"Well, I'm going to put her there," I said. "And you shall help me. But we must be careful."
25
In the meantime Lorina Mansfield, weary of the inaction I had forced on her, or persuaded perhaps that I had dropped the pursuit, boldly resumed her designs on Mrs. ——'s diamond necklace. For convenience' sake I shall call this lady Mrs. Levering. Her real name is one to conjure with in America.
Mr. Dunsany or "English" reported that he had been detailed to go to Newport on Saturday to spy on the lady, and what should he do about it? The plucky gentleman who never hesitated to put himself in danger, became uneasy when it was a question of actually committing a crime.
We arranged a chat over the telephone, and I gave him the best reasons for going ahead with the scheme. We had so much to talk over that I told him I would go up to New England by a different route, and if he was not spied upon he could come to me at Providence early on Sunday and we could go over everything. All the time we had been working together we had never exchanged a word face to face in our natural characters.
We succeeded in pulling off the meeting. Mr. Dunsany assured me he had not been followed. We laid out our plan of campaign. I convinced him that the quickest and surest way to land the whole gang would be to allow them, even to assist them, to carry out a robbery from start to finish. Let them steal Mrs. Levering's jewels, I said, let them get clean away with them. We'll return them later."
"Suppose some one gets hurt," he said nervously.