Briefly Minot told him of the circumstances preceding the start of the _Lileth_ for New York, of his return to the hotel, and the search party he encountered there. Harrowby was very wide awake by this time.
"Wait a minute," Minot said. "They didn't find the necklace. I didn't have it. I'd lost it."
"Yes. And if you want my opinion, I think Martin Wall stole it from me on the _Lileth_ and is now on his way--"
Harrowby leaped from bed, and seized Minot gleefully by the hand.
"Dear old chap. What the deuce do I care who took it. It's gone. Thank God--it's gone."
"No. But you can understand this much. Everything's all right. Nothing in the way of the wedding now. It's splendid! Splendid!"
"Yes. Good! Very good! My dear Minot, the luckiest thing that can happen to us will be--never, never to see Chain Lightning's Collar again!"
As completely at sea as he had been that night--which was more or less at sea--Minot returned to his room. It was after three o'clock. He turned out his lights and sought his bed. Many wild conjectures kept him awake at first, but this had been the busiest day of his life. Soon he slept, and dreamed thrilling dreams.
The sun was bright outside his windows when he was aroused by a knock.
"A package for you, sir," said a bell-boy voice.
He slipped one arm outside his door to receive it--a neat little bundle, securely tied, with his name written on the wrappings. Sleepily he undid the cord, and took out--an envelope.
He was no longer sleepy. He held the envelope open over his bed. Chain Lightning's Collar tumbled, gleaming, upon the white sheet!
Also in the package was a note, which Minot read breathlessly.
"I have decided not to go north after all, and am back in the harbor with the _Lileth_. As I expect Trimmer at any moment I have sent George over to Tarragona Island in charge of two sailormen for the day.
"P.S. You dropped the enclosed in the scuffle on the boat last night."
At ten o'clock that Saturday morning Lord Harrowby was engrossed in the ceremony of breakfast in his rooms. For the occasion he wore an orange and purple dressing-gown with a floral design no botanist could have sanctioned--the sort of dressing-gown that Arnold Bennett, had he seen it, would have made a leading character in a novel. He was cheerful, was Harrowby, and as he glanced through an old copy of the _London Times_ he made strange noises in his throat, under the impression that he was humming a musical comedy chorus.