Here!—there's a telephone box right there—you go in now, and call those fellows up and tell 'em to came right along, quick!"
He and Lauriston waited while Zillah went into the telephone box: she felt sure that Melky and Purdie would have returned to Praed Street by that time, and she rang up Mrs. Goldmark at the Pawnshop to enquire. Within a minute or two she had rejoined Lauriston and the American—during her absence the stranger had been speaking to a waiter, and he now led his two guests to a private sitting-room.
"We'll be more private in this apartment," he observed. "No fear of interruption or being overheard. I've told the waiter man there's two gentlemen coming along, and they're to be brought in here as soon as they land. Will they be long?"
"They'll be here within twenty minutes," answered Zillah. "It's very kind of you to take so much trouble!" The American drew an easy chair to the fire, and pointed Zillah to it.
"Well," he remarked, "I guess that in a fix of this sort, you can't take too much trouble! I'm interested in this case—and a good deal more than interested now that you tell me about these platinum studs. I reckon I can throw some light on that, anyway! But we'll keep it till your friends come. And I haven't introduced myself—my name's Stuyvesant Guyler. I'm, a New York man—but I've knocked around some—pretty considerable, in fact. Say!—have you got any idea that this mystery of yours is at all connected with South Africa? And—incidentally—with diamonds?"
