“The Chink is a friend of ours, and we’ve had our eye upon these stones for a very long time, but rather than the young fellow and the girl shall be ruined I am sending them back to Mrs. Bainbridge’s anonymously by to-night’s post. Sir Polworth Urquhart will think they have come from Tai-K’an. See, Hargreave? I’ve typed out a letter. Just pack them up and address them to her. I can’t bear to take them now I know the truth—poor girl!”
And he handed the gems over to me, together with a small wooden box.
That evening I registered the box from the post office at Darlington, and three days later Charles Otley, who had managed to clear himself of all suspicion, received an anonymous gift of four thousand five hundred pounds which had been placed to his credit at the bank.
And none of the actors in that strange drama suspect the hand of the clever, unscrupulous, but sometimes generous, Squire of Overstow.
CHAPTER XV
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY
“
Mr. Hargreave, father is sending you upon a very strange mission,” Lola told me in confidence one dull morning, after we had had breakfast at the Midland Hotel, in Manchester, where we three were staying about a fortnight after Rayne’s generosity in returning the famous jewels of the dead Sultan.