Bertie thought that he might as well look too. He peeped through the curtains of the bed to see what was going on. He felt a not unnatural curiosity, for what he had heard had made him open both his eyes and ears. Fifty thousand pounds! The repetition of this sum had a startling effect. Chapter XVII TWO MEN AND A BOY There was a lamp on the table. The fire was lighted in the grate; the table was drawn close up in front of it. The couch was beside the table, and on it a man reclined full length. The head was turned towards Bertie, so that he only had a back view of the person lying down. He could see that he had brown hair, worn rather long, and that he was smoking a cigar, and that was all he could see. By the table, standing so that his face was turned towards Bertie, was another man--evidently the impetuous speaker. He was about the middle height, slight, yet sinewy, with coal-black hair cut very short, and a dark olive skin, his face being concealed by neither moustache nor beard. He was holding something in his hands, something which he eyed with ravenous eyes. From his position Bertie was not able to perceive what this something was, but he could see that the table was littered with other articles, and that a roll of paper and two boxes of a peculiar shape lay open on the floor. The dark man was holding the something in his hands in a variety of positions, so that he might get the full effect from different points of view. "Did you ever see such stones?" "They are not bad, considering. Their value consists in their number, my dear friend. Separate stones of better quality can be found." "How much do you say we shall get for it?" "That remains to be seen. If you ask me how much it cost I should say, probably, altogether, twenty thousand pounds." Twenty thousand pounds! The dark man was holding in his hand something which cost twenty thousand pounds. Curiosity was too much for Bertie's discretion. The magnitude of the sum had so startling an effect on his bump of inquisitiveness that before he knew it he was trying his best to see what surprising thing it was which had cost twenty thousand pounds. Half-unconsciously he quitted the security of the bed, and standing in his shirt bare-legged on the floor he strained his eyes to see. Just then the dark man moved into such a position that the unexpected spectator was yet unable to see what it was he held. It was aggravating, but what followed was rather more aggravating still. "Fancy wearing a thing like that! I wonder how I should look with twenty thousand pounds worth of diamonds round my neck." He put his hand up to his neck, clasping round it what seemed to Bertie a line of glittering light. Then he turned, probably with the intention of studying the effect in the looking-glass, and, turning, he saw Bertie.