Angela came near saying, “So it is mine.”  But that might have necessitated explanations.  “Well, you must take the security, I’m afraid,” she said, “or I can’t take the loan.  As I told you, I left most of my things in New York, to be sent on when I settle down.  Still, there’s one thing, which I couldn’t pawn, or leave with hotel people.  But I wouldn’t mind giving it to you.  It’s a diamond frame for a miniature I always carry with me.  I could take the miniature out.”

Nick stared hard at the carpet again.  He was afraid to let her see the look on his face.  “It’s her dead husband’s picture,” he thought.  “She must have loved him, if she always carries his portrait around.”  Aloud he said, “Very well, if you won’t do my way, I’ll have to do yours.”

“I’ll give you the address of my bank; and I must have your address,” Angela went on.  “Then, if you should change your mind and stay here——­”

“I’m going to stay just long enough to get your bag,” he replied.

She laughed.  “That may be forever.”

“I reckon it will be some hours at longest.”

“You must be a wonderful detective!”

“There’s more of the bulldog than the detective in me.  But it will go hard if we don’t find that bag.”

“Thank you again.  We shall see!” she said.  “Anyway, as you’re to be my banker I can tell the hotel clerk I shan’t need to keep people in bathrooms, waiting for my suite, after to-night.”

“Oh, was it you?” exclaimed Nick.  “The fellow was telling me a lady wanted to stay——­”

“Then it’s you they’ve stuffed into a laundry!”

“I like it,” Nick assured her.  “It’s a mighty clean place.  I wish you could see some of the holes I’ve slept in—­that is, I don’t wish so!  But it’s all right.  And now, just say how much money you want.  Anything up to three thousand dollars I can give you in a minute——­”

“Oh, not nearly so much.  A few hundreds.  But I’m going to lunch now.  Would you care to lunch at the same table, and we can arrange about the loan?  Also you can tell me more of Dutchy.”

“I’d like it better than anything,” said Nick.  “But first I’ve got to fix things about your bag with the police.  I’ll be back, and look you up by the time you’re halfway to dessert.  I remember just what that bag was like, because—­maybe you’ve forgotten—­I picked it up in the hotel hall when you dropped it.  I can see it as plain as if it was here.  ’Twas a kind of knitted gold, like chain armour for a doll.  And there was a rim all smothered in diamonds and blue stones.”

“Sapphires,” said Angela.

“That’s right.  Well, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

It was useless to protest against his going, for he had gone before she could speak.  And instead of beginning luncheon, Angela went upstairs to take from its diamond frame her father’s miniature.  On the gold back of this frame there was an inscription:  “Angela, on her eleventh birthday, from her father.  The day before she sails.”  And it was because of the inscription that she could not have offered the frame to an ordinary person as security, no matter how desperately she had wanted a loan.  But Mr. Nickson Hilliard was not an ordinary person.