“But I really cannot accede to this!” I declared. “Though I have fallen into a clever trap and have assisted in certain schemes, yet I have never acted as the actual thief.”
“‘The Golden Face,’ whose marvelous activity and influence we must all admire, has decided that you must do so in this case,” he said inexorably.
I craved time to consider the matter, and after some further conversation told him I would meet him near the bandstand on the sea-front at noon next day, for we did not want to be associated in the hotel.
That night I slept but little, for I realized that if I refused I must assuredly be cast into the melting-pot as one who might, in return, give Rayne away. I thought of Lola with whom I was so madly in love, and whom I intended to eventually rescue from the criminal atmosphere in which, though innocent, she was compelled to live.
I hated to take such a downward step, though the innocent-looking little attaché-case with the steel grips and spring bottom was there by my bedside ready for use. I was torn between the path of honesty from which, alas! I had been slowly slipping ever since I had made that accursed compact with Rudolph Rayne, and my love for Lola, who had, I knew, every confidence in me, while at the same time she was growing highly suspicious of her father.
The reader will readily realize my feelings that night. I had taken a false step, and to withdraw would mean arrest, conviction and imprisonment, notwithstanding any disclosures I might make. Rudolph Rayne remained always with clean hands, the rich country gentleman and personal friend of certain Justices of the Peace, officials, and others, with whom he played golf and invited to his shooting parties on the Yorkshire moors which he rented with money stolen in divers ways and in various cities.
So, to cut a long story short, I met the mysterious Italian crook next day—and I fell, for I took the master-key and agreed to attempt the theft of Lady Lydbrook’s pearls!
I now saw through Rayne’s devilish plot. I was to be used still further as his cat’s-paw, and he had planned that because of my friendship with the pretty young woman, at his orders I was to steal her property.
I felt myself alone and in a cleft stick. That afternoon, as I sat at tea in the lounge with the woman whose jewels I was ordered to steal, I was torn by a thousand emotions, yet I pretended to be my usual self, and at my invitation she went out for a motor run between tea and dinner.