"Get away with the necklace, of course! I don't know how it happened that Dobigel was there, but—"
"But, but, but," Drake said, smiling. "You don't seem to know very much at all, do you?"
"Wha—what do you mean?"
Drake put his last article of clothing in his suitcase and snapped it shut. "I'll probably be searched pretty thoroughly when I get to the spaceport," he said coolly, "but they won't find anything on an innocent man."
"Where is the necklace?" she asked in a throaty voice.
Drake pretended not to hear her. "It's a funny thing," he said. "Old Belgezad would never let the necklace out of his hands except to get me. He thought he'd get it back by making sure I was followed. But he made two mistakes."
The girl put her arms around his neck. "His mistakes don't matter as long as we have the necklace, do they?"
Anson Drake was never a man to turn down an invitation like that. He held her in his arms and kissed her—long and lingeringly.
When he broke away, he went on as though nothing had happened.
"Two mistakes. The first one was thinking up such an obviously silly plot. If it were as easy to steal jewels from the palace as all that, nothing would be safe on Thizar.