"Exactly!" said a jubilant voice behind them, and Mr. Isidore Le Drieux stepped forward and calmly drew up a chair, in which he seated himself. "You will pardon me, gentlemen, for eavesdropping, but I was curious to know what you thought of this remarkable young man who calls himself 'A. Jones.'"
Arthur faced the intruder with a frown. He objected to being startled in this manner. "You are a detective?" he asked.
"Oh, scarcely that, sir," Le Drieux replied in a deprecating way. "My printed card indicates that I am a merchant, but in truth I am a special agent, employed by the largest pearl and gem dealers in the world, a firm with branches in every large European and American city. My name is Le Drieux, sir, at your service," and with a flourish he presented his card.
The young rancher preferred to study the man's face.
"I am a sort of messenger," he continued, placidly. "When valuable consignments of jewels are to be delivered, I am the carrier instead of the express companies. The method is safer. In twenty-six years of this work I have never lost a single jewel."
"One firm employs you exclusively, then?"
"One firm. But it has many branches."
"It is a trust?"
"Oh, no; we have many competitors; but none very important. Our closest rival, for instance, has headquarters on this very coast—in San Francisco—but spreads, as we do, over the civilized world. Yet Jephson's—that's the firm—do not claim to equal our business. They deal mostly in pearls."
"Pearls, eh?" said Arthur, musingly. "Then it was your firm that lost the valuable collection of pearls you mentioned to Mr. Merrick?"