"I reckon it will be some hours at longest."
"You must be a wonderful detective!"
"There's more of the bulldog than the detective in me. But it will go hard
if we don't find that bag."
"Thank you again. We shall see!" she said. "Anyway, as you're to be my
banker I can tell the hotel clerk I shan't need to keep people in
bathrooms, waiting for my suite, after to-night."
"Oh, was it you?" exclaimed Nick. "The fellow was telling me a lady wanted
to stay----"
"Then it's _you_ they've stuffed into a laundry!"
"I like it," Nick assured her. "It's a mighty clean place. I wish you
could see some of the holes I've slept in--that is, I _don't_ wish so! But
it's all right. And now, just say how much money you want. Anything up to
three thousand dollars I can give you in a minute----"
"Oh, not nearly so much. A few hundreds. But I'm going to lunch now. Would
you care to lunch at the same table, and we can arrange about the loan?
Also you can tell me more of Dutchy."
"I'd like it better than anything," said Nick. "But first I've got to fix
things about your bag with the police. I'll be back, and look you up by
the time you're halfway to dessert. I remember just what that bag was
like, because--maybe you've forgotten--I picked it up in the hotel hall
when you dropped it. I can see it as plain as if it was here. 'Twas a kind
of knitted gold, like chain armour for a doll. And there was a rim all
smothered in diamonds and blue stones."
"Sapphires," said Angela.
"That's right. Well, I'll be back in twenty minutes."
It was useless to protest against his going, for he had gone before she
could speak. And instead of beginning luncheon, Angela went upstairs to
take from its diamond frame her father's miniature. On the gold back of
this frame there was an inscription: "Angela, on her eleventh birthday,
from her father. The day before she sails." And it was because of the
inscription that she could not have offered the frame to an ordinary
person as security, no matter how desperately she had wanted a loan. But
Mr. Nickson Hilliard was not an ordinary person.