hardly check his eagerness to learn.

“She was all but ready, dolled up like a circus, I guess,” Jeff grinned, and then became very sober. “All the jewelry was spread out to try how this and that one looked, with her clothes, separate and in different combinations.”

“But what happened?” persisted Sandy.

“There comes a banging on that-there suite door to the hall and a voice hollered, like it was scared to death, ‘Fire! Fire—get out at once!’”

“Didn’t she suspect any trick—was there a trick?”

“She didn’t have time to think. That French maid went crazy and started to hop around like a flea in a hot pan, and yelling, and it upset the missus so much she forgot all about a fire escape on the end window of the suite, and rushed out, snatching up all the strings of beads and pearls and the pins she could carry. But, because she knew it was only imitation and there wasn’t anybody else around anyway, she didn’t bother about the emerald necklace.”

“It was a false alarm—there was no fire!” Larry decided.

“All she found was a paper of burnt matches outside in the hotel corridor that had been set off so when she opened the door she’d smell smoke. Of course she ran back—and——”

As he reached for the letter, and searched on the fourth page, all three of his listeners were holding their breath in suspense.

“Here it is,” he declared, and they crowded around. “Read it, so you’ll see just what I learned about when she went back.”

Bending close, intent and eager, they read:

“Some strong, pungent liquid had been poured on the green necklace,” the letter from the millionaire stated. “No alarm was given. My wife did not want to broadcast either the fact that she had the real gems or the trouble in the hotel. But people had heard the ‘fire!’ cry and doubtless some suspected the possible truth, knowing why she was getting ready.

“Captain Parks came up later with the real stones and while he waited for my wife to finish her costume, he examined the fire escape window and was sure that someone had entered and left by that.

“Now Jeff,” the letter concluded, “my caretaker on Long Island has sent me clippings about a ghost scare on the old estate, and somehow I connect that with the attempt to destroy the 

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