"No, not especially. But you've done him an injustice in one detail, to begin with. He did not have the copy of the Tsarina pearls made for Pavoya. He didn't have it made at all. It was done before his day--done by his mother's order. He told me the story in Paris, where the everlasting subject was you--you and the pearls. It seems that the Duchess--your Pat's mother--soon after her marriage received an anonymous letter warning her of a plot to steal the Tsarina pearls. It was signed 'A Well Wisher', and the writing looked foreign, but not ill spelt or uneducated. There was a hint that the plan was Russian, and the thieves would not be 'ordinary thieves.' Immediately after the Duchess ordered a London jeweller to copy the rope, clasp and all. When it was ready she had the real thing locked up in the bank. The copy was so good that no one except an expert could tell the difference. But there had been one mistake. The eye of the design in the clasp looked the wrong way--to the right instead of the left. However, hardly any one knew which way the original eye turned, so the mistake didn't matter much, and the family didn't trouble to have it rectified. That was a long time ago. But years after there came another warning; and when it was compared with the first the handwriting appeared to be the same. This time the letter was addressed to Claremanagh, who had come of age and had lent the pearls to some charitable exhibition. 'Russia will try again to get back her own. Take care,' the letter said--or something like that. I've forgotten the precise words Pat used. And it was signed, as before: 'A Well Wisher'. Now you see what my mind's working on." "I do see," said Juliet. "Of course, in a way you make things look better for Pat. At least, he wasn't infatuated enough with that woman to have a copy of those famous pearls actually made for her to wear. Still, he must have given them to her--or lent them." "I suppose so," Jack admitted, "unless----" "Unless what?" "Well, I know nothing about the lady except what I've heard--and that she's a dream of a dancer. But right or wrong, she has the reputation of being a tigerish young person when her blood's up. And it's conceivable she may simply have annexed the imitation pearls: put them on to 'see how she looked,' and refused to disgorge! Claremanagh isn't the sort of fellow who would be brutal with a pretty woman."