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Updated: May 25, 2025
There, around Macartney's bared throat, lying on the white skin of his chest, green lights in the dull fire-glow of the cave, were Van Ruyne's emeralds, that Paulette Brown whose real name was Tatiana Paulina Valenka had never seen or touched since she put them back into Van Ruyne's velvet case! I will say Marcia Wilbraham knew when she was beaten.
"I was talking about that liar, Van Ruyne," he said, glaring at Macartney. "He may be a liar, all right," said Macartney rather unpleasantly. "Only, if that Valenka girl didn't steal his emeralds, Mr. Wilbraham, who did?" "That cousin of hers you said you knew; Hutton, or whatever you said his name was," Dudley retorted, like a fool, for Macartney had never mentioned the man's name.
And the crazy thought that jumped into my head, without any earthly reason, was that it was just Hutton who had been hounding her at La Chance; that, while I had been addling my brains with suspecting Collins, it was Hutton that Paulette Brown whose real name was Valenka had stolen out to meet in the dark! Once I thought of it, I was dead sure Hutton had followed her to La Chance.
And no one's ever laid eyes on her, or on Van Ruyne's emeralds ever since." "That's what Van Ruyne says," Dudley began hotly and went on in a different voice. "The Valenka girl never stole his emeralds! She may have cut him across the wrist with one of those knife-things women will use for paper cutters; I don't say she didn't.
Tatiana Paulina Valenka had tramped the bush most of the day before looking for a dead man, had found him a sight no girl should have looked on; had run for more than her life with me, and been through God knew what since; and she walked down that unknown, dark passage with Collins and me as if nothing had ever happened to her.
We've got to get him off all that rot about Billy Jones, or any one else, murdering Thompson; it's stark madness. Both of us know Billy wouldn't murder a cat! And there's another thing, too! I heard all Wilbraham said about that Valenka girl's cousin, and I wish you'd tell him to go slow on it. I was in too much of a rage, or I'd have gone in and told him myself.
But, after he realizes Miss Valenka has vanished" he said her real name perfectly casually "and when Charliet and most of his guns vanish too, and his men begin to get picked off one by one, how long do you suppose it will be before Macartney connects the three things and smells a rat? He'll sense Charliet and a girl can't be fighting him alone.
"All that doesn't explain how Valenka got away or what became of her," said Macartney obstinately. "That's the mystery I began on." I was bored stiff with the whole thing. And whether she had Van Ruyne's emeralds or not I saw no particular mystery in the Valenka girl's disappearance: she had probably had some one outside who had taken her clear away in a motor car.
I felt as if I had walked from Dan to Beersheba and been knocked down and robbed on the way. I knew my dream girl was not mine, now or ever, because she was Dudley's, but I had never thought of her being anything like Tatiana Paulina Valenka. It was not the jewel story that hit me: I knew she had not stolen Van Ruyne's old necklace, no matter how things looked.
"Look here, I never heard anything about Valenka but newspapers' stories, till to-night. But, if you know the inside of the business, how did that cousin Macartney was talking of ever get hold of that emerald necklace? Didn't Macartney imply he was in British Columbia?" "He was more likely anywhere than where he'd have to work if he could get money out of a girl," Dudley snapped.
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