Chatworth gave Flora an almost shamefaced glance, and she saw with a
curious twinge of jealousy that he was intensely excited. "Might as well
have a pot-shot at it," he said; and sitting down on the edge of the
fountain and taking out his check-book, rested it on his knee and wrote.
Then he rose; he held up the filled-in slip before the Chinaman's eyes.
"Here," he said, "twenty thousand dollars." He held the paper well out
of the little man's reach. "Now," he challenged, "tell me where it is?"
Into the goldsmith's eyes came a lightning flash of intelligence, such
as Flora remembered to have seen there when Farrell Wand, leaning on the
dusty counter, had bidden him go and bring something pretty. He seemed
to quiver a moment in indecision. Then he whipped his hand out of his
sleeve and held it forth palm upward. This time it was Chatworth who
cried out. The thing that lay on the goldsmith's palm Flora had never
seen, though once it had been described to her--"a bit of an old gold
heathen god, curled around himself, with his head of two yellow
sapphires and a big blue stone on top."
There it blazed at her, the jewel she had carried in her bosom, that she
had hidden in her pouch of gold, and that had vanished from it at the
touch of a magic hand, now cunningly restored to its right place in the
forehead of the Crew Idol, crowning him with living light.
Speechless they looked together at the magic thing. They had thought it
far at sea; and as if at a wave of a genii's wand it was here before
them flashing in the quiet garden.
With an effort Chatworth seemed to keep himself from seizing on ring and
man together. He looked searchingly at the goldsmith and seemed on the
point of asking a question, but, instead, he slowly held out his hand.
He held it out cup-fashion. It shook so that Flora saw the Chinaman
steady it to drop in the ring. Then, folding his check miraculously
small, enveloping it in the ragged piece of newspaper, the little man
turned and shuffled from them down the gravel walk.
Chatworth stood staring after him with his Idol in his palm. Then,
turning slow eyes to Flora, "How did he come by this?" he asked, as
sternly as if he demanded it of the mystery itself.
"He had it, from the very first." The pieces of the puzzle were flashing
together in Flora's mind. "That first time Harry left the exhibit he
took it there."
"But the blue sapphire?" Chatworth insisted.
"Harry," Flora whispered, "Harry gave it up to him."
"Gave it up to him!" Chatworth echoed in scorn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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