Slipping quickly into the room through an opening hardly wide enough to
admit his spare, small body, the man as quickly shut and locked the door
and pocketed the key. This much accomplished, he swung on his heel and,
without further movement, fastened his attention anew upon the girl.
Standing so--hands clasped loosely before him, his head thrust forward a
trifle above his rounded shoulders, pale eyes peering from their network
of wrinkles with a semi-humourous suggestion, thin lips curved in an
apologetic grin: his likeness to the Mr. Iff known to Staff was
something more than striking. One needed to be intimately and recently
acquainted with Iff's appearance to be able to detect the almost
imperceptible points of difference between the two. Had Staff been there
he might have questioned the colour of this man's eyes, which showed a
lighter tint than Iff's, and their expression--here vigilant and
predatory in contrast with Iff's languid, half-derisive look. The line
of the cheek from nose to mouth, too, was deeper and more hard than
with Iff; and there was a hint of elevation in the nostrils that lent
the face a guise of malice and evil--like the shadow of an impersonal
sneer.
The look he bent upon Eleanor was almost a sneer: a smile in part
contemptuous, in part studious; as though he pondered a problem in human
chemistry from the view-point of a seasoned and experienced scientist.
He cocked his head a bit to one side and stared insolently beneath
half-lowered lids, now and again nodding ever so slightly as if in
confirmation of some unspoken conclusion.
Against the cold, inflexible purpose in his manner, the pitiful prayer
expressed in the girl's attitude spent itself without effect. Her hands
dropped to her sides; her head drooped wearily, hopelessly; her pose
personified despondency profound and irremediable.
When he had timed his silence cunningly, to ensure the most impressive
effect, the man moved, shifting from one foot to the other, and spoke.
"Well, Nelly ...?"
His voice, modulated to an amused drawl, was much like Iff's.
The girl's lips moved noiselessly for an instant before she managed to
articulate.
"So," she said in a quiet tone of horror--"So it was you all the time!"
"What was me?" enquired the man inelegantly if with spirit.
"I mean," she said, "you _were_ after the necklace, after all."
"To be sure," he said pertly. "What did you think?"
"I hoped it wasn't so," she said brokenly. "When you escaped yesterday
morning, and when tonight I found the necklace--I was so glad!"
"Then you did find it?" he demanded promptly.