d returned it to his pocket. Then
he handed the frame, over the case, to the pawnbroker. "What do you
think of that, my Christian friend?" he said with a show of jocularity
that didn't ring quite true.

The pawnbroker bent his dull face close to the article; it was gold. A
pretty trinket, set with a number of brilliants, it might have come from
the Rue Royale or the Rue de la Paix.

"Cost about five hundred francs," observed Mr. Heatherbloom, watching
the other closely. "One hundred dollars, without the duty."

"Where'd you get it?"

"None of your business." With a smile.

The man moved toward a telephone at his back. "Do you know what I'm
going to do?"

"I am curious."

"'Phone the police."

"Is that an invitation for me to depart? If so--" Mr. Heatherbloom
reached for the little gold frame.

"Oh, no," said the man, retaining the graceful article. "The police will
find out who this belongs to."

"Tut! tut!" observed Mr. Heatherbloom lightly. Something on the edge of
the showcase pointed over it; the hand the proprietor professed to raise
toward the telephone fell to his side; he seemed about to call out.
"Don't!" said the visitor. "It's loaded; you saw me put in the
cartridges yourself. Your little game is very passe; I had it worked on
me once before, and placed you in your class--a fourth-rater, with a
crib for loot!"

The other considered; this customer's manner was ominously quiet and
easy; he didn't like it. A telepathic message that flashed from the
gleaming gaze above the shining tube suggested an utterly frivolous
indifference to tragic consequences. The proprietor moved away from the
telephone.

"Fifteen dollars," he said.

"Twenty," breathed Mr. Heatherbloom insinuatingly.

The man put his hand in his pocket and counted out the money. The caller
took it, said something in those same blithe significant accents about
what would happen if the other made a move in the next two or three
minutes, then vanished from the store. He did not keep to the busy
thoroughfare now, but shot into a side street. Would the pawnbroker hide
the frame and then call the police? It was quite possible he might thus
seek to get into their good graces and revenge himself at the same time.
Mr. Heatherbloom turned from dark byway to dark byway. He knew there was
a possibility that he might keep going throughout the night without
being taken; but what would he attain by so doing, how would that profit
him?

He had to