He returned the trinket indifferently.

“Nonsense!” Shaynon interposed incisively.  “Mrs. Strone’s not that kind.”

“Shut up!” snapped P. Sybarite.  “What do you know about it?  You’ve lied yourself out of court already.”

A transitory expression of bewilderment clouded Shaynon’s eyes.

“I’m no judge,” the detective announced doubtfully.

“It makes no difference,” Shaynon insisted.  “Theft’s theft!”

“It makes a deal of difference whether it’s grand or petit larceny,” P. Sybarite flashed—­“a difference almost as wide and deep as that which yawns between attempted and successful wife-murder, Mr. Shaynon!”

His jaw dropped and a look of stupefying terror stamped itself upon
Shaynon’s face.

It was the turn of P. Sybarite to laugh.

“Well?” he demanded cuttingly.  “Are you ready to come to the station-house and make a charge against me?  I’ll go peaceful as a lamb with the kind cop, if by so doing I can take you with me.  But if I do, believe me, you’ll never get out without a bondsman.”

Shaynon recollected himself with visible effort.

“The man ’s crazy,” he muttered sickishly, rising.  “I don’t know what he ’s talking about.  Arrest him—­take him to the station-house—­why don’t you?”

“Who’ll make the charge?” asked the detective, eyeing Shaynon without favour.

“Not Bayard Shaynon!” P. Sybarite asseverated.

“It’s not my brooch,” Shaynon asserted defensively.

“You saw him take it,” the detective persisted.

“No—­I didn’t; I suspected him.  It’s you who found the brooch on him, and it’s your duty to make the charge.”

“You’re one grand little lightning-change-of-heart-artist—­gotta slip it to you for that,” the detective observed truculently.  “Now, lis’n:  I don’t make no charge—­”

“Any employee of the establishment will do as well, for my purpose,” P. Sybarite cut in.  “Come, Mr. Manager!  How about you?  Mr. Shaynon declines; your detective has no stomach for the job.  Suppose you take on the dirty work—­kind permission of Bayard Shaynon, Esquire.  I don’t care, so long as I get my grounds for suit against the Bizarre.”

The manager spread out expostulatory palms.  “Me, I have nossing whatever to do with the matter,” he protested.  “To me it would seem Mrs. Strone should make the charge.”

“Well?” mumbled the detective of Shaynon.  “How aboutcha?”

“Wait,” mumbled Shaynon, moving toward the door.  “I’ll fetch Mrs. Strone.”

“Don’t go without saying good-bye,” P. Sybarite admonished him severely.  “It isn’t pretty manners.”

The door slammed tempestuously, and the little man chuckled with an affectation of ease to which he was entirely a stranger:  ceaselessly his mind was engaged with the problem of this trumped-up charge of Shaynon’s.

Was simple jealousy and resentment, a desire to “get even,” the whole explanation?