"Have I said a word about it disappearing?" demanded the Manager, with a contempt-laden raucity that he made no pretence of softening. "You don't seem to have grasped the simple facts about the case, Mr Carrados. Really, I hardly think----Oh, come in!" There had been a knock at the door, then another. A clerk now entered with an open telegram. "Mr Longworth wished you to see this at once, sir." "We may as well go," whispered Mr Carlyle with polite depression to his colleague. "Here, wait a minute," said the Manager, who had been biting his thumb-nail over the telegram. "No, not you"--to the lingering clerk--"you clear." Much of the embarrassment that had troubled Mr Carlyle a minute before seemed to have got into the Manager's system. "I don't understand this," he confessed awkwardly. "It's from Bellitzer. He wires: '_Have just heard alleged robbery Straithwaite pearls. Advise strictest investigation._'" Mr Carlyle suddenly found it necessary to turn to the wall and consult a highly coloured lithographic inducement to insure. Mr Carrados alone remained to meet the Manager's constrained glance. "Still, _he_ tells us really nothing about the theft," he remarked sociably. "No," admitted the Manager, experiencing some little difficulty with his breathing, "he does not." "Well, we still hope to be able to report something to-morrow. Good-bye." It was with an effort that Mr Carlyle straightened himself sufficiently to take leave of the Manager. Several times in the corridor he stopped to wipe his eyes. "Max, you unholy fraud," he said, when they were outside, "you knew all the time." "No; I told you that I knew nothing of it," replied Carrados frankly. "I am absolutely sincere." "Then all I can say is, that I see a good many things happen that I don't believe in." Carrados's reply was to hold out a coin to a passing newsboy and to hand the purchase to his friend who was already in the car. "There is a slang injunction to 'keep your eyes skinned.' That being out of my power, I habitually 'keep my ears skinned.' You would be surprised to know how very little you hear, Louis, and how much you miss. In the last five minutes up there I have had three different newsboys' account of this development." "By Jupiter, she hasn't waited long!" exclaimed Mr Carlyle, referring eagerly to the headlines. "'PEARL NECKLACE SENSATION. SOCIETY LADY'S £5000 TRINKET DISAPPEARS.' Things are moving. Where next, Max?" "It is now a quarter to one," replied Carrados, touching the fingers of his watch. "We may as well lunch on the strength of this new turn. Parkinson will have finished packing; I can telephone him to come to us at Merrick's in case I require him. Buy all the papers, Louis, and we will collate the points."