don’t buy.” He took out his check-book. “Twenty thousand now, as I agreed.”
For the first time the secretary spoke; his voice was thin and cold and disturbingly polite. “You say the pearls will arrive in six days?”
“Six days or thereabouts,” Madame Jordan answered.
“Ah, yes.” An ingratiating note crept in. “They are coming by—”
“By a private messenger,” said Eden sharply. He was taking a belated survey of Martin Thorn. A pale high forehead, pale green eyes that now and then popped disconcertingly, long, pale, grasping hands. Not the jolliest sort of playmate to have around, he reflected. “A private messenger,” he repeated firmly.
“Of course,” said Thorn. Madden had written the check and laid it on the jeweler’s desk. “I was thinking, Chief—just a suggestion,” Thorn went on. “If Miss Evelyn is to return and spend the balance of the winter in Pasadena, she will want to wear the necklace there. We’ll still be in that neighborhood six days from now, and it seems to me—”
“Who’s buying this necklace?” cut in Madden. “I’m not going to have the thing carried back and forth across the country. It’s too risky in these days when every other man is a crook.”
“But father,” said the girl. “it’s quite true that I’d like to wear it this winter—”
She stopped. P.J. Madden’s crimson face had gone purple, and he was tossing his great head. It was a quaint habit he had when opposed, the newspapers said. “The necklace will be delivered to me in New York,” he remarked to Eden, ignoring his daughter and Thorn. “
