“How could I forget?” Florence sat up, all attention.
“Of course. Petite Jeanne, she is your best friend.
“She cast suspicion upon herself by deserting her post here; running away. Had it not been for me, she would have gone to jail. I had seen through her masquerade at once. ‘This,’ I said to myself, ‘is Petite Jeanne. She would not steal a dime.’ I convinced others. They spared her.
“Then,” she paused for a space of seconds, “it was up to me to find the pearls and the thief. I think I have accomplished this; at least I have found the pearls. As I said, you can help me. You know the people living on that curious man-made island?”
“I—” Florence was thunderstruck.
Aunt Bobby! Meg! How could they be implicated? All this she said to herself and was fearful.
Then, like a bolt from the blue came a picture of Meg’s birthday package.
“You know those people?” the “lady cop” insisted.
“I—why, yes, I do.”
“You will go there with me after the opera?”