"You come right round here!" Mr. Parker interrupted soothingly. "No good getting fussy over the telephone!" "Where to?" I asked. "You forget I don't know your address. I should have been round hours ago if I had known where to find you." "Bless my soul, no more you do! We are at Number 17, Banton Street--just off Oxford Street, you know." "I am coming straightaway," I replied. I was there within ten minutes. The place seemed to be a sort of private hotel, unostentatious and unprepossessing. A hall porter, whose uniform had seen better days and whose linen had seen cleaner ones, conducted me to the first floor. Mr. Parker himself met me on the landing. "Come right in!" he invited. "I saw you drive up. Eve is in there." He ushered me into a large sitting room of the type one would expect to find in such a place, but which, by dint of many cushions, flowers, and feminine knickknacks, had been made to look presentable. Eve was seated in an easy-chair by the fire. She turned round at my entrance and laughed. "Where's my necklace, please?" she demanded. "The necklace," I replied, as severely as I could, "is by this time on its way to Lady Orstline--if it is not actually in her hands." "You mean to say you have sent it back?" Mr. Parker exclaimed incredulously. "Certainly!" I replied. "I posted it to her early this morning." Mr. Parker's expression was one of blank bewilderment. "Say, do I understand you rightly?" he continued, coming up and laying his great hand upon my shoulder. "You mean to say that, after all we went through because of that miserable necklace, you've gone and chucked it? Do you know it was worth twenty-five thousand pounds?" "I don't care whether it was worth twenty-five thousand pounds or twenty- five thousand pennies!" retorted I. "It belonged to Lady Orstline--not to you or your daughter or to me. I know that you are a skillful conjurer and I won't ask you how it found its way into my pocket. I am only glad I have had an opportunity of returning it to its owner." Mr. Parker shook his head ponderously. He turned to Eve. "This," he said solemnly, "is the young man who asked leave to join us! What do you think of him, Eve?" "Nothing at all!" she replied flippantly. "He is absolutely useless!" "If you think," Mr. Parker went on, "we are in this business for our health, I want you to understand right here that you are mistaken. I never deceived you. I told you the first few seconds we met that I was an adventurer. I am. I brought off a coup last night with that necklace, and you've gone and queered it! It isn't for myself I mind so much," he concluded, "but there's the child there, I was going to have the pearls restrung and let her wear them a bit--until the time came for selling them."