that you are on very friendly terms with Lady Lydbrook. Our
friend old Hesketh has been here and watched your progress--a
grey-mustached man with a slight limp. I dare say you may have noticed
him."

I recollected the silent watcher who I had feared might be a
detective, and who had recently left the hotel. So Rayne had set
secret watch upon my movements--a fact which irritated me.

"Yes. I know Sir Owen's wife," I said. "Why?"

"Possibly you don't know that she has in a small dark-green morocco
case a rope of pearls worth twenty thousand, as well as some other
magnificent jewels. Haven't you seen her wearing her pearls?"

"I have," I said, "but I put them down as artificial ones."

"No--every one of them is real! They were a present to her from her
husband on her marriage," said the foreigner, his dark eyes glowing as
he spoke. "We want them," he whispered eagerly. "And as you know her,
you'll have to get them."

"I shall do no such thing!" I protested quickly. "I may be employed by
Mr. Rayne, but I'm not paid to commit a theft."

My visitor looked me very straight in the face with his searching
eyes, and after a moment's pause, asked:

"Is that really your decision? Am I to report that to Duperre--that
you refuse?"

"If you want to steal the woman's pearls why don't you do it
yourself?" I suggested.

"Because I am not her friend. You have called at her room for her,
Hesketh has reported. You would not be suspected, being her friend,"
he added with sly persuasiveness.

"No. Tell them I refuse!" I cried, furious that such a proposition
should be put to me.

The foreigner, in whom I now recognized a polished international
crook, shrugged his shoulders and elevated his eyebrows. Then he
asked:

"Will you not reconsider your decision, Signor Hargreave? I fear this
refusal will mean a great deal to you. When 'The Golden Face' becomes
hostile he always manages to put those who disobey him into the hands
of the police. And I have knowledge that he intends you to act in this
case as he directs, or--well, I fear that some unpleasantness will
arise for you!"

"What do you threaten?" I demanded angrily. "I don't know who you
are--and I don't care! One fact is plain, that you, like myself, are
an agent of the man of abnormal brain known as 'The Golden Face,' but
I tell you I refuse to become a jewel-thief."

"Very well, if that is your irrevocable decision I will return
to-morrow and report," he answered in ve