“I promised to return it to-morrow. And now it seems I am moving farther and farther from it.”
Had she but known it, the time was not far distant when, like two bits of flotsam on a broad sea, she and the lost cameo would be drifting closer and closer together. And, strange as it may seem, the owner of the cameo, that frail, little, old lady, was to play an important part in the lives of Petite Jeanne and Florence.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime the two officers and the man of the evil eye were playing a bit of drama all their own on the sand-blown desert portion of the island.
“You’ll have to come clean!” the senior officer was saying to the man whom he addressed as Al.
“All you got to do is search me. You’ll find nothing on me, not even a rod.” The man stood his ground.
“Fair enough.” With a skill born of long practice, the veteran detective went through the man’s clothes.
“You’ve cachéd it,” he grumbled, as he stood back empty-handed.
“I’m not in on the know.” The suspicion of a smile flitted across the dark one’s face. “Whatever you’re looking for, I never had it.”
“No? We’ll look about a bit, anyway.”