"It isn't that so much.
I'm ready for that. It's the fact that he trusted me implicitly, and
I--well, I played the fool, or I'd never have got into a mess like
this."
For an instant Jimmie Dale looked at the other searchingly, and then,
smiling strangely, he shook his head.
"There's a better way than that, Burton," he said quietly.
"I think, as I said before, you've had a lesson to-night that will last
you all your life. I'm going to give you another chance--with Maddon.
Here are the stones." He reached into his pocket and laid the case on
the table.
But now Burton made no effort to take the case--his eyes, in that
puzzled way again, were on Jimmie Dale.
"A better way?" he repeated tensely. "What do you mean? What way?"
"Well, say at the expense of another man's reputation--of mine,"
suggested Jimmie Dale, with his whimsical smile. "You need only say that
a man came to you this evening, told you that he stole these rubies from
Mr. Maddon during the afternoon, and asked you, as Mr. Maddon's private
secretary, to restore them with his compliments to their owner."
A slow flush of disappointment, deepening to one of anger dyed Burton's
cheeks.
"Are you trying to make a fool of me?" he cried out. "Go to Maddon with
a childish tale like that! There's no man living would believe such a
cock-and-bull story!"
"No?" inquired Jimmie Dale softly.
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