executor of the estate, you see."
But Clara Britton leveled her eyes at him, as if the thing he had produced was not at all the thing he had led up to. "Still, unless there was enormous pressure somewhere--and in this case I don't see where--I can't see what Mr. Purdie's keenness will do toward getting it back."
Harry played a little sulkily with the proposition, but he would not pick up the thread he had dropped. "I don't know that any one sees. The question now is--who took it?"
"Why, one of us," said Flora flippantly. "Of course, it is all on the Western Addition."
"Don't you believe it!" he answered her. "It's a confounded fine professional job. It takes more than sleight of hand--it takes genius, a thing like that!"
Flora gave him a quick glance, but he had not spoken flippantly. He was serious in his admiration. She didn't quite fancy his tone. "Why, Harry," she protested, "you talk as if you admired him!"
At this he laughed. "Well, how do you know I don't? But I can tell you one thing"--he dropped back into the same tone again--"there's no local crook work in this affair. It should be some one big--some one--" He frowned straight before him. He shook his head and smiled. "There was a chap in England, Farrell Wand."
The name floated in a little silence.
"He kept them guessing," Harry went on recalling it; "did some great vanishing acts."
"You mean he could take things before their eyes without people knowing it?" Flora's eyes were wide beyond their wont.
"Something of that sort. I remember at one of the Embassy balls at St. James' he talked five minutes to Lady Tilton. Her emeralds were on when he began. She never saw 'em again."
Flora began to laugh. "He must have been attractive."
"Well," Harry conceded practically, "he knew his business."
"But you can't rely on those stories," Clara objected.
"You must this time," he shook his tawny head at her; "I give you my word; for I was there."
It seemed to Flora fairly preposterous that Harry could sit there looking so matter-of-fact with such experiences behind him. Even Clara looked a little taken aback, but the effect was only to set her more sharply on.
"Then such a man could easily have taken the ring in the Maple Room this afternoon? You think it might have been the man himself?"
His broad smile of appreciation enveloped her. "Oh, you have a scent like a bloodhound. You haven't let go of that once since you started. He could have done it--oh, easy--but he went out eight, ten years ago."
"Died?" Flora's rising inflection was a lament.
"Went over the horizon--over the range. Believe he died in the colonies."
"Oh," Flora sighed, "then I shall have to fancy he has come back again, just for the sake of the Chatworth ring. That wouldn't be too strange. It's all so strange I keep forgetting it is 

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