At last, however, he unbuttoned his coat, and after glancing cautiously around to make sure no one was near, he took the box from his pocket, and holding the stones to the light examined them carefully, taking in his hand first the ear-rings and then the pin, and holding them in such a way that two or three times they flashed directly in the eyes of the cruel man watching him.
"Yes, they are Mrs. Tracy's diamonds: there can be no mistake," he whispered, just as he became conscious that there was some one in the door looking at him.
Quick as thought he put the box out of sight while Peterkin's voice, exultant and hateful called out:
"Hallo, Mr. Prayer-book, your piety won't let you keep back a darned thing you know agin me, but it lets you have in your possession diamonds which I'd eenamost swear was them stones Miss Tracy lost years ago and suspected you of takin'. I know the box any way, I heard it described so often, and I b'lieve I know them diamonds. I seen 'em in the looking-glass settin' in t'other room, and seen you look all round like a thief afore you opened 'em. So fork over, and mebby you can give me back May Jane's pin you stole at the party the night Mr. Arthur came home. Fork over I say!"
Too much astonished at first to speak, Harold looked at the man who had attacked him so brutally, while his hand closed tightly over the diamonds in his pocket, as if fearing they might be wrenched from him by force.
"Will you fork over, or shall I call the perlice?" Peterkin asked.
"Call the police as soon as you like," Harold replied, "but I shall not give you the diamonds."
"Then you own that you've got 'em! That's half the battle!" Peterkin said, coming close up to him, and looking at him with a meaning smile more detestable than any menace could have been. "I know you have got 'em, and I can ruin you if I try, and then what'll your doxie think of you! Will she refuse my Bill for a thief, and treat me as if I was dirt?"
"What do you mean, sir?" Harold demanded, feeling intuitively that by his doxie Jerrie was meant, and feeling a great horror, too, lest by some means her name should be mixed up with the affair before she had a chance to explain.
The reference to Billy was a puzzle, but Peterkin did not long leave him in doubt.