"I say, Barch, I've got a flea to put into your ear," he said earnestly, "and I didn't want those blighters hanging round to hear it; that's the reason I packed them off as I did. I'm going to give you a shock that will set you thinking."
"Are you?" said Cleek with the utmost serenity. "Well, I'm going to give you one, too, dear boy; and as first horse at the post wins—I say, what price this little caper? How did you come by this, dear boy—and when?"
He dipped round and down into his coat-tail pocket, as he spoke, pulled out the scent bracelet, and laid it on the table before him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PICKING UP THREADS
Young Raynor was not in the smallest degree upset at sight of the thing. He was mildly surprised, and expressed it by a low, soft whistle as he reached out his hand and took up the bracelet.
"Well, of all the mutton heads! Shows what a thoughtless beggar I am!" he said with a slight lurch of the shoulders and an impatient twitch of the head. "No need to ask you how you came by the blessed thing, dear boy. Found it in the inside pocket of that coat you're wearing, I know. That's where I put the bally thing, I recollect. What an ass of me to forget all about it. Hope she won't think I've bagged it."
"She?" said Cleek, with admirable composure, considering that this open admission, this evidence of there being nothing to conceal, threatened to upset all his calculations. "Antecedent of that personal pronoun, please; who may the 'she' in question be?"
"Why, Mignon, of course."