ve been more careful. A little
pinch of powder in the punch at dinner-time--just that--and on the first
night, too! It was so easy afterward to get into your room, remove the
real paper, and wrap the candle in a blank piece while you slept."

"You--you dog!" she snapped out viciously. "You drugged me?"

"Yes, madame; you and the one-eyed man as well! Oh, don't excite
yourself--don't pull at the poor wretch like that. The glass eye will
come out quite easily, but--I assure you there is only a small lump of
beeswax in the socket now. I removed the Rainbow Pearl from poor
Monsieur Clopin's blind eye ten minutes after I burnt the letter,
madame, and--it passed out of this house to-night! A clever idea to pick
up a one-eyed pauper, madame, and hide the pearl in the empty socket of
the lost eye, but--it was too bad, you had to supply a glass eye to keep
it in, after the lid and the socket had withered and shrunk from so many
years of emptiness. It worried the poor man, madame; he was always
feeling it, always afraid that the lump behind would force it out; and,
what is an added misfortune for your plans, the glass shell did not
allow you to see the change when the pearl vanished and the bit of
beeswax took its place. Madame Tcharnovetski, your passport. I know
enough of the King of Mauravania to be sure that your life will not be
safe if you are not past the frontier before daybreak!"

* * * * *

"Monsieur le comte--no! I thank you, but I cannot wait to be presented
to his Majesty, for I, too, leave Mauravania to-night, and, like Madame
yonder, return to other and more promising fields," said Cleek, an hour
later, as he stood on the terrace of the Villa Irma and watched the slow
progress down the moonlit avenue of the carriage which was bearing
Madame Tcharnovetski and her effects to the railway station. "Give me
the cheque, please; I have earned that, and--there is good use for it. I
thank you, Count. Now do an act of charity, my friend: give the little
dog in the stable a good meal, and then have a surgeon chloroform him
into a peaceful and merciful death. They will find the Rainbow Pearl in
his intestines when they come to dissect the body. I starved him,
Count--starved him purposely, poor little wretch, so that he could be
hungry enough to snap at anything in the way of food and bolt it
instantly. To-night, when I went up to take him out to the stable, a
thick smearing of beef extract ove