Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/118

 hotel management, poor Jerry was forlornly hanging around outside the St. Moe like a lost sheep. Well, I decided that I'd help him regain his job and former glory by giving him a chance to steal the private detective's thunder. Having that all settled in my mind, I smoothed back my hair and went to work!

The first thing was to find out what, if anything Thurston had discovered in the way of clues pointing to who stole the necklace, so I began alternately flirting with him and riding him hard on his failure to show some results. But Abigail's boy friend was so madly infatuated with himself that he accepted my attention as no more than his due, and when I switched to sarcasm it rolled off his egotism like water off an oilskin. Finally, however, he began to respond to treatment, and one day he point blankly declared he had solved the mystery. He made that interesting statement with so little of his usual bluster that somehow I instantly believed him.

"Who's the thief?" I asked excitedly.

Thurston smiled mysteriously.

"Ah!" he says, "that will indeed surprise you, my dear girl. So will the solution of this unusual case. I expect to make an arrest within twenty-four hours, and when I do—well, to say you will be astonished would be making a most conservative statement!"

"Yes, yes—go on!" I begged. "If you don't tell me