When Dudley Drake stepped out of his bathing suit in his bedroom and rubbed himself to a healthy pink, he started dressing leisurely and meticulously because he regarded this evening as the beginning of a sort of second honeymoon and he wanted to look accordingly. The day had faded into twilight when he came down to the living-room, whistling as he came, and he snapped on the light, a little disappointed because Carmelita had not returned from Lucy's and was not there to greet him. He pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch and was applying the match when he noticed that the wall safe stood half open.
He walked over, his eye half upon the firing pipe bowl, unwilling to believe that some outsider had been tampering with the safe. He saw quickly what was holding the door in a peculiar half-open position. A pearl necklace was caught in the hinges and hanging half out. Somebody had yanked the inner drawer inside the safe open with careless haste, spilled the jewels out of their case, and neglected to replace them. Was it Carmelita. This was
