"Its very marrow," assented Mrs. Goldmark, fervently, "is in my desk! It was dropped on one of our tables a few afternoons ago by a man who, as Mr. Rubinstein says, looked like one of those Colonials. Leastways, my waitress, Rosa, she picked it up exactly where he'd been sitting. So I put it away till he comes in again, you see. Oh, yes!"
"Has he been in again?" asked Purdie.
"Never was he inside my door before!" answered Mrs. Goldmark dramatically. "Never has he been inside it since! But—I keep his property, just so. In my desk it is!"
Purdie considered this new evidence in silence for a moment.
"The question now is—this," he said presently. "Is the man who seems undoubtedly to have dropped those studs the same man who brought that book in here? Or, had Mr. Multenius two callers here during your absence, Miss Wildrose? And—who is this mysterious man who dropped the studs—valuable things, with a special device on them? He'll have to be traced! Mrs. Goldmark—can you describe him, particularly?"
Before Mrs. Goldmark could reply, a knock came at the side-door, and Zillah, going to answer it, returned presently with a middle-aged, quiet-looking, gold-spectacled gentleman whom she introduced to Purdie as Mr. Penniket, solicitor to the late Daniel Multenius.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DETECTIVE CALLS
Mr. Penniket, to whom the two cousins and Mrs. Goldmark were evidently very well known, looked a polite enquiry at the stranger as he took the chair which Melky drew forward for him.
"As Mr. Purdie is presumably discussing this affair with you," he observed, "I take it that you intend him to hear anything I have to tell?"