Jennette Lee

“ VIII Tom Corbin got up quickly, with a smile.
"Well, it's good to see you, Milly, coming in that door! It's like old times, you know!"
She shook hands with him and glanced about the office.
"You haven't changed things much, have you?"
"More dust! That's about all!" said Tom. He looked about the room critically, as if he saw it with new eyes, and for the first time.
"Dust doesn't hurt!" he declared. "Good for finger-prints!" He laughed out.
"Bad for fingers," returned Milly. "Spoils the touch."
"Well—perhaps—you've decided to take the Mason case, have you?" ”

“ Nothing. . . . Everybody seems to have trusted him, down to the ground. Besides"—he pointed to the date—"he had the money before the jewels were taken, you see!"
"Yes—unless they misrepresented the date to shield him?"
"I wish they had!" chuckled Tom. "That would have been easy to check—like taking candy from a child. . . . They're simple sort of folks."
"Are they?" said Milly. And the gaunt figure in its black garments passed swiftly before her. . . .
"Perfectly simple! If you go out there to work, you'll like them all." ”

“ The separate stones would not be so easy to identify, either. But nothing has come in. . . . It almost looks as if that necklace had not been broken up," he said thoughtfully.
"Well! Take it! And I wish you joy of your findings!" he added almost savagely. ”