"I think I understand," he said with a compassionate air. "I suppose there will be no prosecution."
"I do not know," I said blandly.
"Maybe it would be better never to speak of the matter to her?" he said softly.
I shrugged. I wasn't going to let him get any change out of me.
"Anyhow it's a triumph for you," he said graciously. "Allow me to congratulate you."
Was there a faint ring of irony in his words? In either case I never felt less triumphant. What booted it to return her jewels if I had broken her heart? I bowed my acknowledgment.
As he left he said: "Come and see me sometimes, though the case is closed. You are too valuable a man for me to lose sight of."
I bowed again, mutely registering a resolve to ask him a thumping figure if he ever did require my services.
Meanwhile I had the reporters to deal with. I have a strong fellow-feeling for the boys. As a class they are the most human lot of fellows I know. They do not make the rotten conditions of their business. But they certainly are the devil to deal with when they get you on the defensive. They seemed to spread through that hotel like quicksilver, bribing the bell-boys, the maids, even the waiter who brought up my dinner. If we had not been on the eleventh story I should have expected to find them peeping in the windows.
I did not dare see them myself. In my anomalous position they would have made a monkey of me. In my mind's eye I could see the story of the mysterious stranger who claimed to represent Miss Hamerton, etc., etc. I had to take every precaution, too, to keep them from that fool of a Mrs. Bleecker. I carefully drilled the doctors in what they should say, and then sent them down to their fate. They came off better than I expected. Of course the lurid tales did appear next day, but they were away beside the mark. Nothing approaching the truth was ever published.