Anthony, seeing it, suddenly became angry. Did this woman, he thought, who was perhaps a thief and was certainly an impostor, really suppose she was going to charm him, Anthony Wood, by her mere beauty--he who was well known to be indifferent to women? She would learn----
But what she would learn was not formulated, for she now surprised him by jumping to her feet and running like a gazelle toward the sea, crying out something to him which he did not catch. He started, however, in full pursuit--his first thought being that she intended to drown herself; the second that she meant to fling the pearls into the sea--the well-known trick of destroying the evidence in a tight place. She ran on. The sea was up to her knees--up to her waist, fully dressed as she was; she was now swimming. They had the sea entirely to themselves. Even the detectives, trusting to Mr. Wood, had withdrawn for a bite to eat; and at five o'clock all those fortunate people who come to the seaside for the summer are engaged in golfing or playing bridge, and seem to ignore the existence of the Atlantic Ocean.
Anthony had hesitated at the brink of the sea long enough to take off first his shoes, second his watch and third the light coat which he had worn driving the car, so that he was some little distance behind her. Swimming hard and for the most part under water, he did not see for some time the object which had attracted Pearl's attention. Neither suicide nor the pearls were the object of her plunge, but a small white dog which appeared to be drowning. Some children up the beach had been throwing sticks for it, and now at the end of a long