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 less and wide-eyed, absolutely hypnotized with amazement and contempt!

Finally I got up enough nerve to ask him if he was the one who stole Abigail's necklace. This brought more laughs from my charming vis-à-vis.

"No, sweetness," he says, "I haven't nailed that—yet! She never lost it, what d'ye think of that? I told you I'd surprise you, didn't I? Well, get this—the old fool is crazy to see her name in the papers, so she frames up that robbery story. Then I was to solve the 'mystery' and she thought we'd get married, see? That would make a first-class romance from a newspaper angle—'Weds Sleuth Who Recovers Stolen Heirloom!' Can't you see the headlines?"

I had seen and heard enough—plenty! I stood up and called to the waiting Jerry, who came on the run.

"Arrest him, Jerry," I panted. "He's not a detective, he's a thief!"

When Jerry gruffly told this Sir Galahad he was pinched, really, I thought for a moment Thurston was going to knock me down, and I felt very faint and scared, but I held my ground. He seemed suddenly fairly sobered up by the shock as he glared at me ferociously and muttered something about "a woman and booze" having licked him. Jerry hustled him outside se quickly that only those right around us had even a hazy idea of what it was all about.