He had round fat cheeks, an ivory skin, but the thing about him that caught Eden’s attention was the expression in his eyes, a look of keen brightness that made the pupils gleam like black buttons in the yellow light.

“Alec,” said Sally Jordan, “this is my old friend, Charlie Chan. Charlie — Mr. Eden.”

Chan bowed low. “Honors crowd close on this mainland,” he said. “First I am Miss Sally’s old friend, and now I meet Mr. Eden.”

Eden rose. “How do you do,” he said.

“Have a good crossing, Charlie?” Victor asked.

Chan shrugged. “All time big Pacific Ocean suffer sharp pain down below, and toss about to prove it. Maybe from sympathy, I am in same fix.”

Eden came forward. “Pardon me if I’m a little abrupt — but my son — he was to meet your ship —”

“So sorry,” Chan said, regarding him gravely. “The fault must indubitably be mine. Kindly overlook my stupidity, but there was no meeting at dock.”

“I can’t understand it,” Eden complained again.

“For some few minutes I linger round gang-board,” Chan continued. “No one ventures to approach out of rainy night. Therefore I engage taxi and hurry to this spot.”

“You’ve got the necklace?” Victor demanded.

“Beyond any question,” Chan replied. “Already I have procured room in this hotel, partly disrobing to remove same from money-belt about waist.” He tossed an innocent-looking string of beads down upon the table. “Regard the Phillimore pearls at journey’s end,” he grinned. “And now a great burden drops from my shoulders with a most delectable thud.”

Eden, the jeweler, stepped forward and lifted the string in his hands. “Beautiful,” he murmured, “beautiful. Sally, we should never have let Madden have them at the price. They’re perfectly matched — I don’t know that I ever saw —” He stared for a moment into the rosy glow of the pearls, then laid them again on the table. “But Bob — where is Bob?”

“Oh, he’ll be along,” remarked Victor, taking up the necklace. “Just a case of missing each other.”

“I am the faulty one,” insisted Chan. “Shamed by my blunder —”

“Maybe,” said Eden. “But — now that you have the pearls, Sally, I’ll tell you something else. I didn’t want to worry you before. This afternoon at four o’clock some one called me — Madden again, he said. But something in his voice — anyhow, I was wary. Pearls were coming on the President Pierce, were they? Yes. And the name of the messenger? Why should I tell him that, I inquired. Well, he had just got hold of some inside facts that made him feel the string was in danger, and he didn’t want anything to happen.