We had scrambled eggs and sausages. I stayed for a couple of hours
talking about the abstract questions that young men loved to discuss.
When I left he was as much of an enigma to me as when I arrived. He
was willing to talk about anything under the sun--except himself.
Without appearing to, he foiled all my attempts to draw him out.
Hard upon this growing friendship it was a shock to learn from Sadie as
a result of her work during the days, that it was Roland Quarles who
had deposited forty thousand dollars in his bank.
"Impossible!" I said in my first surprise.
"I got it direct from the bank," she said. "It was the Second
National. He deposited forty thousand in cash on April Sixth."
My heart sunk.
"But that doesn't prove that he stole the pearls," said Sadie. She
shared my liking for the young fellow.
"I hope not," I said gloomily. "But if it wasn't he then our promising
clue is no good."
"Maybe he won it on the Stock Exchange."
"That doesn't explain the cash. No broker pays in cash."
"Well I can think of ten good reasons why he couldn't have done it,"
Sadie said obstinately. She had too warm a heart, perhaps, to make an
ideal investigator.
That night Roland asked me home to supper again. This was about a week
after the first occasion. The old woman had gone to bed and he cooked
creamed oysters in a chafing-dish, while I looked at the paper.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have white hands waiting at home to do that for
you?" I suggested teasingly.
"Never for me!" he said with a bitter smile.
"Why not?"
"What I can have I don't want. What I want I can never have."
"You never can tell," I said encouragingly. I was thinking what a
superb couple the handsome young pair made on the stage. It seemed low
to cross-examine him while he was preparing to feed me, but there was
no help for it.
"The market is off again," I said carelessly. "Chance for somebody to
make money."
"How can you make money when the market is going down," he said
innocently.
If the innocence was assumed it was mighty well done. However, I told
myself his business was acting.
"By selling short," I said.
"I never understood that operation."