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Markel blew his nose vigorously, coughed asthmatically, and held out his hand. "Of course, certainly," said he effusively. "I've met Carruthers several times used his sheet more than once to advertise a new bond flotation." The dominant note in Markel's voice was an ingratiating and unpleasant whine, and Carruthers nodded, not very cordially and shook hands.
Carruthers, very evidently, liked neither the man nor his manners, but Carruthers, above everything else, was a gentleman. "To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Markel," he said a little frigidly, "I don't believe in this sort of thing. It's all right from a newspaper standpoint, and we do it; but it's just in this way that owners of valuable jewelry lay themselves open to theft.
And Markel has ruined me I did not see through his trick until too late. Listen! For years, as a mining engineer, I made a good salary and I saved it. Two years ago I had nearly seventy thousand dollars it represented my life work. I bought an abandoned mine in Alaska for next to nothing I was certain it was rich.
Markel went back to the door, closed it carefully, and returned to the table. "Fact is," he smiled confidentially, "I saw you two come in here a few minutes ago, and I've got something that I thought Carruthers might be glad to have for his society column say, in the Sunday edition."
Jimmie Dale's voice had sharpened perceptibly "I called you once before, you will perhaps remember though it is a very long time ago, in reference to a certain diamond necklace and a you will pardon the term gentleman by the name of Markel. ... Ah, you recognise the Gray Seal's voice now, do you! ... No, don't apologise.... I thought perhaps you might be interested in the possibility of another scoop.... Yes, quite so! ... I would suggest then that you get the police to accompany you to the back room of Melinoff's, the old-clothes dealer's shop.... Yes, I thought you might know the place.
"You had trouble a fight with him? Is he he dead?" "No," said Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly. "He's pretty badly hurt, though, I imagine but not in a physical way." "Strange!" whispered Wilbur, in a numbed tone to himself; and he went back and sank down in his desk chair. "Strange that you should speak of Markel strange that you should have come here to-night!" Jimmie Dale did not answer.
There isn't even a possibility of you being accused of the theft. In the first place, Markel saw quite enough of me to know that it wasn't you. Secondly, neither Markel nor any one else would ever dream that the break was made for anything else but the necklace, with which you have no connection the papers were in the cash box and were just taken along with it. Don't you see?
Jimmie Dale spent a moment or two examining these, then his fingers dived down underneath, and the next minute, under the flashlight, the morocco leather case open, the diamond necklace was sparkling and flashing on its white satin bed. "A tempting little thing, isn't it?" said Jimmie Dale gently. "It was really thoughtful of you, Markel, to buy that this afternoon!"
From above came wild confusion women's voices in little shrieks; men's voices shouting in excitement; doors opening, running feet. And then Jimmie Dale had snatched the revolver from the floor where Markel had dropped it in the scuffle, and was pressing it against Markel's forehead and Markel, terror-stricken, had collapsed in a flabby, pliant heap.
No one out there would advance me anything on a property that looked like a failure, that had once already been abandoned. I have always kept an office here, and I came back East with the idea of raising something on my insurance. Markel, quite by haphazard as I then thought, was introduced to me just before we left San Francisco on our way to New York.
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