Roger also had a secret that Sunday. He waited for Beverley and Clo to
be gone (reminding his wife that she had promised to be back by four)
and then called up the Belmont Hotel by telephone.

"Give me Count Lovoresco's room," he said, and presently a foreign
conception of the word "Hello!" rumbled through the receiver.

"Hello, Count," Roger replied, recognizing the voice. "My wife's safely
off. I'll send my own car round at once. Now you've got the letter of
confirmation we can settle our business. What? You're ready? Thank you.
My man'll be at the hotel as soon as you can get down. Good-bye."

Fifteen minutes later a dark, dapper, elderly man with magnificent eyes
was ushered into Roger's study.

"You've brought the pearls, of course?" Roger asked.

"Yes, Mistaire Sand, I bring ze pearls," announced Count Lovoresco.

"And the letter from the Queen?"

"From 'er Majesty's secretaire," Count Lovoresco corrected. "'Ere it
is." He drew from a breast pocket a square envelope with a crown and a
monogram on the flap. This he handed to Sands, and as the latter opened
it, he took from another pocket a purple velvet box, oval in shape,
about eight inches long by two in height. On the cover appeared a gold
crown, and the same monogram as that of the envelope. Roger had seen
this box and its contents; so, instead of watching a tiny gold key
fitted into a miniature padlock, he read the letter authorizing Count
Lovoresco, in the name of his Queen, to sell in America a rope of
pearls, for the benefit of the soldiers' orphans of her country.

"This clears the deck," remarked Roger. The cover of the oval box was
raised, and lying in a series of concentric grooves he saw the pearls
which he intended to buy for Beverley. They were two hundred and fifty
in number, as he knew, and were graduated in size, the largest being as
big as a giant pea. All were exquisitely matched in shape and colour,
and the one fault--if fault existed--was a blue whiteness disliked by
some connoisseurs. Roger was aware, however, that Beverley loved
snow-white pearls.

"Any minute Simon Lecourt may be here," he said to Lovoresco. "When he's
looked at the things, I'll sign and hand you my cheque for two hundred
and sixty thousand dollars."

Lovoresco smiled under his dyed moustache, but the wonderful eyes, for
which men of his race are famous, lit angrily.

"You are ze most prudent of gentlemen!" he exclaimed. "Your great
Franco-American pearl exp