millionaire mine owner.

When Kelson courteously informed her he was in possession of her
secret--a secret she had felt positively certain only one other person
knew, she went the colour of her pea-green sunshade and attempted to
remonstrate. But Kelson's appearance, no less than his marvellous
knowledge of her life, and character dumbfounded her--she was simply
paralysed into admission; and before he left her, Kelson had added
another thousand dollars to his hoard.

That evening, close to the Academy of Science in Market Street, he saw
a lady get out of a taxi and quickly enter a pawnbroker's. Her whole
life at once rose up before him. She was Ella Crockford, the wife of
the Californian Street Sugar King, and, unknown to her husband, she
spent her afternoons at a gambling saloon in Kearney Street, where she
ran through thousands.

She was now about to pledge her husband's latest present to her--a
diamond tiara, one of the most notable pieces of jewellery in the
country--in the hope that she would soon win back sufficient money at
cards to redeem it.

Kelson stopped her as she came out, and in a marvellously few words,
proved to her that he knew everything. Her amazement was beyond
description.

"You must be a magician," she said, "because I'm certain no one saw me
take my jewel-case out of the drawer--no one was in the room! And as I
put it in my muff immediately, no one could have seen it as I left the
house. Besides, I never told a soul I intended pawning it, so how is