“I shall do no such thing!” I protested quickly. “I may be employed by Mr. Rayne, but I’m not paid to commit a theft.”
My visitor looked me very straight in the face with his searching eyes, and after a moment’s pause, asked:
“Is that really your decision? Am I to report that to Duperré—that you refuse?”
“If you want to steal the woman’s pearls why don’t you do it yourself?” I suggested.
“Because I am not her friend. You have called at her room for her, Hesketh has reported. You would not be suspected, being her friend,” he added with sly persuasiveness.
“No. Tell them I refuse!” I cried, furious that such a proposition should be put to me.
The foreigner, in whom I now recognized a polished international crook, shrugged his shoulders and elevated his eyebrows. Then he asked:
“Will you not reconsider your decision, Signor Hargreave? I fear this refusal will mean a great deal to you. When ‘The Golden Face’ becomes hostile he always manages to put those who disobey him into the hands of the police. And I have knowledge that he intends you to act in this case as he directs, or—well, I fear that some unpleasantness will arise for you!”
“What do you threaten?” I demanded angrily. “I don’t know who you are—and I don’t care! One fact is plain, that you, like myself, are an agent of the man of abnormal brain known as ‘The Golden Face,’ but I tell you I refuse to become a jewel-thief.”
“Very well, if that is your irrevocable decision I will return to-morrow and report,” he answered in very good English, though he was typically Italian. “But I warn you that mischief is meant if you do not obey. Duperré told me so. Like myself you are paid to act as directed and to keep a silent tongue. Only six months ago Jean Durand, in Paris, refused to obey a demand, and to-day he is in the convict prison in Toulon serving a sentence of seven years. He attempted to reveal facts concerning ‘The Golden Face,’ but the judge at the Seine Assizes ridiculed the idea of our head director living respected and unsuspected in England. You may believe yourself safe and able to adopt a defiant attitude, but I, for one, can tell you that such a policy can only bring upon you dire misfortune. Once one becomes a servant of ‘The Golden Face’ one remains so always, extremely well paid and highly prosperous providing one is alert and shrewd, but ruined and imprisoned if one either makes a slip or grows defiant. I hope you will understand me, signor. I have been given a master-key to the hotel. It will open Lady Lydbrook’s door. Here it is.”