due.

"I think," said he, "you had better leave the case with me."

"Yes," said Lydia. She hoped to get out of the room before Anne saw how
undone she really was. "That's nice. You think it over, and we'll have
another talk. Come along, Anne. Mary Nellen wants some lemons."

XVIII

What Alston Choate did, after ten minutes' frowning thought, was to sit
down and write a note to Madame Beattie. But as he dipped his pen he
said aloud, half admiring and inconceivably irritated: "The little
devil!" He sent the note to Madame Beattie by a boy charged to give it,
if possible, into her hand, and in an hour she was there in his office,
ostrich plumes and all. She was in high feather, not adequately to be
expressed by the plumes, and at once she told him why.

"I believe that little wild-fire's been here to see you already. Has
she? and talking about necklaces?"

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
che