"I am satisfied," she said at last. "Are you very busy at present?"
"Tolerably," I said with a busy air. It would never have done to let her think otherwise.
"I would like you to take my case," she said with an enchanting note of appeal, "but it would have to be on the condition that you attended to it yourself, solely. I would have to ask you to agree not to delegate any part of it to even the most trusted of your employees."
This was easy, since I didn't have any.
"You must, please, further agree not to take any steps without consulting me in advance, and you must not mind—perhaps I might call the whole thing off at any moment. But of course I would pay you."
I quickly agreed to the conditions.
"I have been robbed of a pearl necklace," she said with an air of infinite sadness.
I did not need to be told that there was more in this than the ordinary actress'-stolen-jewels case. Irma Hamerton didn't need that kind of advertising. She was morbidly anxious that there should be no advertising in this.
"It was a single strand of sixty-seven black pearls ranging in size from a currant down to a pea. They were perfectly matched, and each stone had a curious, bluish cast, which is, I believe, quite rare. As jewels go nowadays, it was not an exceptionally valuable necklace, worth about twenty-six thousand dollars. It represented my entire savings. I have a passion for pearls. These were exceptionally perfect and beautiful. They were the result of years of search and selection. Jewellers call them blue pearls. I will show you what they looked like."
She went into the adjoining room for a moment, returning with a string of dusky, gleaming pearls hanging from her hand. They were lovely things. My unaccustomed eyes could not distinguish the blue in them until she pointed it out. It was like the last gleam of light in the evening sky.