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 intention of restoring the pearls and jailing the thief over the week-end. Nobody gave poor Jerry a tumble, beyond telling him he was a comic opera detective and to keep his nose out of the case as he'd only make a bad matter worse. It was Mr. Oliver Thurston who got the undivided attention of one and all. Here was the big chance for him to prove that he meant something, and the habitués of the St. Moe, positive he was bonded goods, sat back expectantly to watch him do his stuff.

But to everybody's astonishment, Thurston seemed only mildly concerned about Abigail's robbery and made little or no comment on it, intimating that million dollar thefts and unusual murder mysteries were more in his line. So lordly was his manner that this explanation evidently satisfied and impressed the rest of em, but it was the turkey's fountain pen to me! The first chance I got I asked this so called clue collector how come he wasn't functioning in the great $100,000 pearl necklace mystery. Thurston smiled carelessly and flicked the ash off his cigarette with a carefully manicured nail.

"In the first place, my dear girl," he says, pushing back a yawn, "nyther Miss Monkton nor the hotel management has retained me in the matter, and in the second place"—another flick of his cigarette ash—"eh—in the second place, I am not particularly interested in petty larceny!"