"Does she have you watched?" I asked.
"No. She thinks she has me where she wants me. But if she suspected
anything----"
"You mustn't come here again," I said.
His face fell absurdly.
"Oh, I'm not kicking you out," I said smiling. "I shall keep in touch
with you. Would you like to see this woman go to jail?"
"Would I?" he cried, jumping up. Words failed him. "Oh--! Oh, just
try me, that's all!"
"Well, I'm going to put her there," I said. "And you shall help me.
But we must be careful."
25
In the meantime Lorina Mansfield, weary of the inaction I had forced on
her, or persuaded perhaps that I had dropped the pursuit, boldly
resumed her designs on Mrs. ----'s diamond necklace. For convenience'
sake I shall call this lady Mrs. Levering. Her real name is one to
conjure with in America.
Mr. Dunsany or "English" reported that he had been detailed to go to
Newport on Saturday to spy on the lady, and what should he do about it?
The plucky gentleman who never hesitated to put himself in danger,
became uneasy when it was a question of actually committing a crime.
We arranged a chat over the telephone, and I gave him the best reasons
for going ahead with the scheme. We had so much to talk over that I
told him I would go up to New England by a different route, and if he
was not spied upon he could come to me at Providence early on Sunday
and we could go over everything. All the time we had been working
together we had never exchanged a word face to face in our natural
characters.
We succeeded in pulling off the meeting. Mr. Dunsany assured me he had
not been followed. We laid out our plan of campaign. I convinced him
that the quickest and surest way to land the whole gang would be to
allow them, even to assist them, to carry out a robbery from start to
finish. Let them steal Mrs. Levering's jewels, I said, let them get
clean away with them. We'll return them later."
"Suppose some one gets hurt," he said nervously.
"Not likely," I said. "They play too safe a game. We will be on our
guard."
He agreed with me, but said if we fell down on the case he would feel
obliged to give her another necklace of equal value. This was a matter
of $90,000.
"We are not going to fall down on it," I said.
What followed can best be told by Mr. Dunsany's reports.