"Put it to me," said I, drawing out my card-case. "There's my card, and you can ask anybody within half a square mile if they don't know me for a trustworthy man. What is it you've got?" I went on, never dreaming that he'd got anything at all of any great value. "I'll give you an idea of its worth in two minutes."
But he glanced round at the door and shook his head.
"Not here, mister!" he said. "I wouldn't let the light o' day shine on what I got in a public place like this, not nohow. But," he added, "I see you've a office and all that. I ain't undisposed to go there with you, if you like—you seem a honest man."
"Come on then," I said. "My office is just round the corner, and though I've clerks in it, we'll be private enough there."
"Right you are, mister," he answered, and he drank off his rum and we went out and round to my office.
I took him into my private room—I had a young lady clerk in there (she'd remember this man well enough) and he looked at her and then at me.
"Send the girl away," he muttered. "There's a matter of undressing—d'ye see?—in getting at what I want to show you."
I sent her out of the room, and sat down at my desk. He took off his overcoat, his coat, and his waistcoat, shoved his hand into some secret receptacle that seemed to be hidden in the band of his trousers, somewhere behind the small of his back, and after some acrobatic contortions and twistings, lugged out a sort of canvas parcel, the folds of which he unwrapped leisurely. And suddenly, coming close to me, he laid the canvas down on my blotting-pad and I found myself staring at some dozen or so of the most magnificent pearls I ever set eyes on and a couple of rubies which I knew to be priceless. I was never more astonished in my life, but he was as cool as a cucumber.
"What d'ye think o' that lot, mister?" he asked. "I reckon you don't see a little lot o' that quality every day."
"No, my friend," said I, "nor every year, either, nor every ten years. Where on earth did you get them—"