"Certainly, since you carry in your pocket the topaz bracelet."
"Oh," said I, taken aback at his false conclusion, "it is that, is it? I am much obliged to you, but I don't happen to possess such a thing."
"Mon Dieu!" said he; "then she did not sell it to you?"
"She certainly did not!"
"And she will wear it at the ball to-night?"
"Of course!"
"Mother of God! she is a dead woman then."
It is often possible to tell from the chord of voice a man strikes in conversation whether he be friend or enemy. I knew from the sympathetic note in this earnest exclamation that I had to do with one who wished well to Mademoiselle Bernier; but the very sorrow of the words struck me chill with fear. It was plain that I must shape a bold course if I would learn the whole moment of the mystery, and observing that the stranger was a man of much shabbiness and undoubted poverty—if that might be judged by his dress—I played the only possible card at once.
"Look here," said I, "this is no time for words like this. Come into the café with me, and I will pay you fifty pounds for what you know. It shall be worth a hundred if you convince me that you have done a substantial kindness to Mademoiselle Bernier."
He looked at his watch before he made answer. Then he said,—