Something which he wore beneath snapped, as he still struggled to escape me, and a bright object flashed under my eyes as it fell, and dropped with a slight metallic noise to the floor.
Evidently it was to him an article of value. Impulsively he stooped, forgetful for a second of the object which had animated him, and thus the advantage became all mine again. I had him pinioned fast.
At our feet, I now had time to observe, lay a broken gold chain and a locket.
Twisting my hand firmly in his collar I bent over and picked up the ornaments. "Allow me," I said, smiling. And as I was about to put the locket in his hand I could not avoid seeing the portrait that it framed. It was an open-faced, old-fashioned thing, set round with a rim of pearls. The crystal had been cracked across in the fall, but the delicately painted ivory miniature within was intact, and I gave a slight exclamation as I saw that it represented Karine Cunningham.
If I had been surprised to see her picture in the "studio" at the House by the Lock, I was doubly surprised to see it in a locket worn by a young desperado on the other side of the world. Impulsively I withdrew my hand which held the ornament, with the feeling that the man had no right to it–that I could not return it to him again.
"Give it back to me!" he ejaculated, forgetting his evident fear of me for the first time, and speaking with a certain manly fierceness that thawed the chill of my contempt for him. "If I've got a right to nothing else on earth, I've got a right to that. It's a portrait of my sister."
"Your sister! You swear that?"
"Of course I swear it. I don't see why you shouldn't know it–though I haven't done much credit to the name of Cunningham."
I could not doubt him. Not that I had not every reason to believe that he would be willing to lie as fast as he could speak if it happened to suit his purpose, but the ring of sincerity in his voice was unmistakable.
I let go my hold upon him. Such was his astonishment at the manœuvre that he made no attempt to take advantage of his freedom, but simply stood still and stared at me.