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Updated: May 4, 2025
Maillot's eagerness and impatience were so intense that he had been unable to restrain himself when the old gentleman lapsed most vexatiously into a revery. "Well?" Maillot had urged. "Marry the girl. Then give Fluette the Paternoster ruby. Bring your wife to me for after all is said and done, Royal, I 'm a lonely old man.
As he himself might have phrased it, he was supplying me not only with a motive for the crime, but, from the time of his conversation with Mr. Fluette forward, with evidence which cumulatively inculpated himself. So far, I had felt like one listening to a confession; as if all that I had already harkened to was but a preamble to the tragedy which was yet to follow.
Coming as it did at such a juncture, when all present were hanging in suspense upon the words as they fell from the foreman's lips, it produced much the same effect as might have followed the explosion of a bomb in the company's midst. Miss Fluette gasped, and her face went as white as ashes. Maillot and Fluette were both instantly upon their feet, startled and tense.
The first figure set by the dealers was almost prohibitive, but as Fluette seemed willing to meet it, I was ready to go him one better. But the wily Italians hedged. They set us to bidding against each other, and as the price rose my resolution to get the stone grew more set.
"But by and by I came to observe that each mention of either Belle or Mrs. Fluette was received with a courtesy and respect for which I could not account. I was at last moved to ask him whether he was acquainted with them; but he testily shook his head, and bade me with some asperity not to ask questions. He dropped into a brown study pretty soon, so I shut up.
Miss Fluette had followed his every word with a light of love and sympathy shining in her hazel eyes, which was undoubtedly exerting an encouraging influence over the narrator; but Miss Cooper, I observed and not without some inward satisfaction was covertly watching me, as if she would fathom my thoughts and read the effect which the story was producing there.
Tell him you have performed your part of the bargain; tell him that the second Miss Belle is yours, the ruby shall be his; tell him he shall never get his hands on it one tick of the clock before. "He won't hesitate; I know Alfred Fluette. If you follow my instructions explicitly, the young lady will be Mrs. Royal Maillot by this time tomorrow night.
It was a joke, that. Here was I, like an old idiot, trying to spend good money for something the other fellow did n't have to sell. But pretty soon I saw a way to reach my end just the same as though I 'd beat Fluette in the deal. It was a whole lot better than that, in fact.
"Thank you," he said dryly, his voice low and even. "But I intend getting out of this scrape myself, Mr. Fluette; I don't wish to occasion you any future embarrassment. Please don't mistake my meaning." Fluette made no further effort, and it was impossible to determine just how the rebuff it was no less affected him; he had himself too well in hand, now.
The bar of soap was gone. It was a very crestfallen detective that presented himself at the Fluette home early Friday morning. I had counted so much upon unearthing the ruby myself, assured that through it I must certainly succeed in drawing some betrayal from the murderer, that its loss amounted to a thwarting of all my efforts.
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