Madame Beattie was sitting upright in the office chair, fanning herself and regarding him with a smile as sympathetic as if she had been the cause of no disturbing issue. "You'll pardon me for asking you to come here," said Alston. "But I didn't know how to get at you without Mrs. Blake's knowledge." "Of course," said Madame Beattie composedly. "She was there when the note came, and curious as a cat." "I see," said Alston, tapping noiselessly with his helpful paper knife, "that you guess I've heard some rumours that--pardon me, Madame Beattie--started from you." "Yes," said she, "that pretty imp has been here. Quite right. She's a clever child. Let her stir up something, and they may quiet it if they can." "Do you mind telling me," said Alston, "what this story is--about a necklace?" "I've no doubt she's told you just as well as I could," said Madame Beattie. "She sat and drank it all in. I bet ten pounds she remembered word for word." "As I understand, you say--" "Don't tell me I 'say.' I had a necklace worth more money than I dared tell that imp. She wouldn't have believed me. And my niece Esther is as fond of baubles as I am. She stole the thing. And she said she lost it. And it's my opinion--and it's the imp's opinion--she's got it somewhere now." Alston tapped noiselessly, and regarded her from under brows judicially stern. He wished he knew recipes for frightening Madame Beattie. But, he suspected, there weren't any. She would tell the truth or she would not, as she preferred. He hadn't any delusions about Madame Beattie's cherishing truth as an abstract duty. She was after results. He made a thrust at random. "I can't see your object in stirring up this matter. If you had any ground of evidence you'd have made your claim and had it settled long ago." "Not fully," said Madame Beattie, fanning. "Then you were paid something?" "Something? How far do you think 'something' would go toward paying for the loss of a diamond necklace? Evidently you don't know the history of that necklace. If you were an older man you would. The papers were full of it for years. It nearly caused a royal separation--they were reconciled after--and I was nearly garroted once when the thieves thought I had it in a hand-bag. There are historic necklaces and this is one. Did you ever hear of Marie Antoinette's?" "Yes," said Alston absently. He was thinking how to get at her in the house where she lived. How would some of his novelists have written out Madame Beattie and made her talk? "And Maupassant's." This he said ruminatingly, but the lawyer in him here put down a mark. "Note," said the mark, "Maupassant's necklace. She rose to that." There was no doubt of it. A quick cross-light, like a shiver, had run across her eyes. "You know Maupassant's story," he pursued. "I know every word of Maupassant. Neat, very neat."