The Great Pearl Secret

								


Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: "He glared at the clasp as if the diamond and sapphire
eye were a miniature head of Medusa"]

  THE GREAT PEARL
SECRET


BY


C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

  FRONTISPIECE
BY
JULIAN DE MISKEY

  GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1921

  COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

  CONTENTS


CHAPTER


I. In Juliet's Sitting Room
II. The Explanation
III. "To Meet the Duchess"
IV. The Letter with the Tsarina's Seal
V. The Third Ringer of the Bell
VI. Behind the Bookshelf
VII. What Juliet Told Jack
VIII. Juliet Breaks the Seals
IX. The Eye That Looked to the Right
X. The House in a Crosstown Street
XI. In Jack's Private Sitting Room
XII. "The 'Whisperer' Stuff"
XIII. A Woman's Eyes
XIV. Supper at Twelve
XV. The Fortune Teller
XVI. The Grey Room
XVII. The Crystal
XVIII. The Bargain
XIX. Old Nick
XX. The Third Degree
XXI. The Middle Door
XXII. The Whole of the Secret

THE GREAT PEARL SECRET

CHAPTER I
IN JULIET'S SITTING ROOM
A maid opened the door leading from a bedroom to a salon of the "royal
suite" at Harridge's Hotel.  Dusk had fallen, and entering, she
switched on the electricity.  The room, with its almost Louis Seize
decorations, was suddenly flooded with light; and to her surprise the
Frenchwoman saw a slim black figure nestled deep among cushions on a
sofa before the fire.  A small white face, with a frame of terra-cotta
hair crushed under a mourning toque, turned a pair of big black eyes
upon her.
"Miladi West!" exclaimed the maid.  (She pronounced it "Vest") "Pardon,
Madame, I did not know that any one was here."
She spoke in French, with an accent which told that her first language
had been Italian, learned in the south of France; though in looks she
was the chic Parisienne.  Her English was quite good, but when she used
that tongue, her accent was of New York.  She preferred French,
however, was proud of being French, and had Frenchified her
Nicois-Italian name of Simonetta Amaranti to Simone Amaranthe.  All
Juliet Phayre's friends had to be polite to Simone.
"Mr. Phayre's man let me in," said the red-haired lady in widow's
weeds.  "After I'd had a look at the wedding presents, I was so dazzled
that I switched off the lights."  She laughed, and then cried, "Leave
the lights now!  I suppose Mademoiselle won't be forever?"
Simone shrugged her thin shoulders just perceptibly.  "Mademoiselle
sent me out on an errand, Miladi.  I have not long returned, with the
perfume she wanted.  It was for the coiffeur who is here to wash the
hair of Mademoiselle.  She would not have the stuff he brought, so the
man was obliged to wait.  I am afraid the drying, even with the hot-air