But his bewilderment was as nothing compared to mine. I reached over for the string of pearls with the ruby clasp. I took them and turned them over and over in my hands, weakly, mutely, as though they themselves might in some way solve an enigma which seemed inscrutable. And I had to confess that the whole thing was too much for me. I was still looking down at that lustrous row of pearls, so appealing to the eye in their absolute and perfect graduation, when I heard the younger man at my side call my name aloud. "Kerfoot!" he said, not exactly in alarm and not precisely in anxiety, yet with a newer note that made me look up sharply. As I did so I was conscious of the figure so close behind me, so near my chair that even while I had already felt his presence there, I had for the moment taken him for my scrupulously attentive waiter. But as I turned about and looked up at this figure I saw that I was mistaken. My glance fell on a wide-shouldered and rather portly man with quiet and very deep-set gray eyes. What disturbed me even more than his presence there at my shoulder was the sense of power, of unparaded superiority, on that impassive yet undeniably intelligent face. "I want to see you," he said, with an unemotional matter-of-factness that in another would have verged on insolence. "About what?" I demanded, trying to match his impassivity with my own. He nodded toward the necklace in my hand. "About that," he replied. "What about that?" I languidly inquired. The portly man at my shoulder did not answer me. Instead he turned and nodded toward a second man, a man standing half a dozen paces behind him, in a damp overcoat and a sadly rumpled shirt-front. I felt my heart beat faster of a sudden, for it took no second glance to tell me that this second figure was the jewel thief whom I had trailed and cornered in the musty-smelling cab. I felt the larger man's sudden grip on my shoulder--and his hand seemed to have the strength of a vise--as the smaller man, still pale and disheveled, stepped up to the table. His face was not a pleasant one. Benny Churchill, whose solicitous eyes bent for a moment on his sister's startled face, suddenly rose to his feet. "Look here," he said, with a quiet vigor of which I had not dreamed him capable, "there's not going to be any scene here." He turned to the man at my shoulder. "I don't know who you are, but I want you to remember there's a lady at this table. Remember that, please, or I'll be compelled to teach you how to!" "Sit down!" I told him. "For heaven's sake, sit down, all of you! There's nothing to be gained by heroics. And if we've anything to say, we may as well say it decently." The two men exchanged glances as I ordered two chairs for them. "Be so good," I continued, motioning them toward these chairs. "And since we have a problem to discuss, there's no reason we can't discuss it in a semi-civilized manner."