"Which they cashed within half an hour!"
"Maybe. I never enquired."
"Sold Miss Hamerton's pearls back to Miss Hamerton's leading man!" I cried. "My boy, we have something out of the common in crooks to deal with!"
"They had a well-furnished suite on an upper floor of a first-class office building," he resumed. "I was there three or four times. I saw other customers coming and going. Everything was business-like and all right looking. Even the stenographer had a prim New England air. They showed me all kinds of precious stones. I bit at the pearls because I recognised that they were the same kind Irma had. They asked eight thousand dollars for them."
"You knew, didn't you, that Miss Hamerton's necklace was worth much more than that?"
"Yes. But I had been told hers were very fine and perfect. I supposed these to be not so good."
"And so you paid your money on a chance, and took them home."
"Not quite as fast as that. The jewellers seemed to take it as a matter of course that I would have the pearls examined by an expert before purchasing. They suggested that I take them up to Dunsany's."
"Dunsany's?" I said amazed.
"Yes. Wasn't that enough to lull suspicion? Dunsany's is more than a jewelry store; it's a national institution."