back in new york next day, i made haste to get to work on the half dozen clues with which roland had furnished me.

i may say in passing, though the visit had no important results, that i called on mr. ambler of the amsterdam trust company. at first he declined to give me any information whatever, but when i hinted that a certain suspicion rested on mr. quarles, he corroborated roland's story as far as he knew it. he declined to give me the name of the attorney who had brought the money to the bank. "my endorsement of mr. quarles' story should be amply sufficient to clear him," he said, with the air of a bank president.

"undoubtedly," i said, bowing, and left.

since there appeared to be no immediate connection between roland's legacy and the theft of the pearls, i let that go for the present.

i went to the address of the jewellers on maiden lane, but found, as i expected, that the birds had flown. an irate renting agent aired his opinion of messrs. sanford and jones, but could give me no information of their whereabouts. they had leased the offices for a year, and after five weeks' tenancy, quietly moved out.

"don't you ask references from prospective tenants?" i asked.

"they gave a1 references," he mourned.

i took down the names of their references for future use. one of them was mr. freer of dunsany and company.

my next call was upon mr. alfred mount in his office behind the store of exquisite fashion. his greeting, while polite, was slightly cooler than of yore. as a man of the world, i was expected to gather from it, that our relations were now at an end. it warned me to be wary. i was already on my guard, because i knew that he hated roland, and hoped to profit by his disgrace.

"anything new?" he asked casually.

"yes—and no," i said. "i am not satisfied that we have got quite to the bottom of our case."

"do we ever get quite to the bottom of anything?" he asked.

"i do not believe that quarles was alone in this," i said as a feeler.

"what makes you think so?" he asked quickly.

"nothing definite," i said. "just a feeling."

he shrugged.

"i believe that expert jewel thieves made a fool of him," i suggested.

"it is possible," said mount, looking bored.

"if so, it is much to the interest of your business to run them down. so i have come to ask for your co-operation."

"my dear sir," mount replied with his indulgent, worldly smile, "the world is full of trouble. i do not try to escape my share; i face it like a man, or as near like a man as i can. but i never go searching for more. we have by your skill recovered the jewels. the reasons for not pursuing the matter any further are to me obvious. better let well enough alone."

i appeared to give in to him. "maybe you're right. i thought i saw a chance to earn a little glory."

"there will be plenty of opportunities for that," he said affably. "you can count on me."

we parted in friendly fashion.

so much for mr. alfred mount. at least he would never be able to say later that i had not given him his chance.

i went to the magnificent marble building which houses dunsany and company, and asked boldly for mr. walter dunsany, great-grandson of the founder of the house, and its present head. i was admitted to him without difficulty. i found him a jeweller and a man of affairs of a type very different from him i had just come from. mr. dunsany was a simple, unassuming man, direct and outspoken. in short, a man's man. i was strongly attracted to him, and i may say without vanity that he seemed to like me. from the first he trusted me more than i had any right to expect.

at this time he was a man of about forty-five years old, somewhat bald, and beginning to be corpulent, but with a humorous, eager, youthful glance. he glanced up from my card with a whimsical smile.

"confidential investigator? more trouble, i suppose?"

"i'm afraid so," i said. "have you an employee named freer, an expert on pearls."

"i had until a few days ago."

an exclamation of disappointment escaped me.

"what's the matter with freer?" he asked.

"i suppose you don't know where he is?"

"on his way back to holland, i suppose. he came from there ten years ago. why?"

"one more question first. i am assuming that you know that a certain famous necklace of blue pearls has been stolen?"

"mount's pearls? certainly. everybody in the trade was advised."

"you are sure freer knew?"

"certainly. it was his business first."

"yet a week or so ago, that necklace was brought into your store by a man who was considering the purchase of it. he submitted it to freer. freer pronounced the stones genuine, and said that the necklace was worth about twelve thousand."

mr. dunsany jumped up and paced the room agitatedly. "freer!" he exclaimed. "impossible! you are sure of your facts!"

i described the operations of messrs. sanford and jones.

"not impossible, i suppose," he said more quietly. "this sort of thing has happened to me before. i doubt if there was ever a time when i was not harboring some thief or another. they never steal from me, you understand. they are the pickets, the outposts, who watch where the jewels go, and report to headquarters. but freer! he had been with me ten years. he had an instinct for pearls!"

"headquarters?" i said eagerly. "then you agree with me that there is an organised gang at work?"

"that's no secret," he said. "every jeweller knows that there is a kind of corporation of jewel thieves. it is probably ten years old, and better organised and administered than our own association."

"why don't you break it up?"

"break it up!" he echoed. "it is my dearest ambition! there has never been a meeting of our association but what i have urged with all my eloquence that we get together and break up the thief trust. they will not support me. everybody suspects that he has spies in his establishment, perhaps like freer in a responsible position. the crooks seem to have us where they want us. they have never robbed us, you see. there is a sort of unwritten agreement, you leave us alone and we'll leave you. the other men in the association say: 'if our customers are careless with their jewels, we are not responsible.' but i say we are! these crooks have put us in a position where, if we do not go after them, we may be said to be in league with them."

"mr. mount is a member of the association, i suppose?"

"mount? oh yes, he's the president. to give mount credit i must say that he has always supported me in this matter, though not so warmly as i would have liked. but i am considered a fanatic."

"why don't you and he do it together?" i asked.

"he won't go into it without the backing of the association."

"why don't you go it alone?" i said. "you are powerful."

he glanced at me sharply. "i will when i see my way," he said. "such police officers and detectives as have happened to come under my observation have not seemed to me the right men for the job. when i find my man——"

"will you consider me as an applicant for the job?" i asked quietly.

he studied me hard. "i should be difficult to satisfy," he said.

"first of all as to references," i said. there were some good men who backed me. i gave him their names.

"how about mount?" he asked.

"i have already applied to him for the job," i said frankly, "and was turned down. he is satisfied with the recovery of the pearls. as long as he has refused to go in, i think it would be better not to let him know about our plans. that, however, is up to you."

"i shall not let him know," mr. dunsany said briefly.

to make a long story short, i succeeded in satisfying mr. dunsany of my fitness to undertake the matter in hand. we concluded a defensive and offensive alliance. he let me understand that expense was to be no object. i saw him every day. we met at his club, which was as safe a place as we could find.

i gave him my full confidence, of course. with roland's consent i told him everything that had occurred up to that time. mr. dunsany for his part had a whole file of evidence that he had quietly collected. he turned it over to me. it was interesting, and in the end valuable, but it had nothing to do with the case of the blue pearls.

we laid our plans with infinite care. there was no hurry now, and every move was planned in advance. absolute secrecy was imperative. mr. dunsany and i agreed not to take a soul on earth into our confidence.

it was necessary to hire a small army of operatives. i did not figure in this. i had peter keenan, an old friend of mine, who was not known generally among my friends, act for me. peter was a faithful, conscientious soul, not at all brilliant. he hired a suite of offices on forty-second street and set up the "international detective agency." peter was the nominal head, and sadie the real directress of this establishment. here the operatives were hired and sent on their errands. each did his little task knowing nothing of the general plan.

meanwhile mr. b. enderby was to be found all day in his office on fortieth street with his feet on the desk, chinning with his young friends or composing a new play. you see the second cryptogram led me to suspect that they were aware of my identity, and in case i were watched, as i surely would be, i desired to give the impression that i had dropped all activities in connection with jewels or jewel thieves. i communicated with sadie by letter. uncle sam is at once the most public and the safest messenger. for emergencies we arranged a system of telephone calls.

it would be a tedious task to set down all the routine work of the agency. there were mistakes, disappointments and blind trails without number. to begin with, sadie was ordered to trace freer, the pearl agent, also sanford and jones, the bogus jewellers, and any of their employees. all this entailed great labour, and it was absolutely barren of result. these people seemed to have vanished into thin air. in the case of kenton milbourne she was more successful. she wrote:

"in my character of miss covington the actress, i called on several of the women of miss hamerton's company who gave me their addresses when we disbanded. from their gossip i learned without having to ask questions, that kenton milbourne has not disappeared. they have all met him on broadway. he is apparently living the ordinary life of an actor out of a job, going around to the different agencies to list his name, etc. his address is no. — west 49th street.

"i have allotted three of our best men to keep milbourne under surveillance. the first, d.b., who has been an actor, is working independently of the other two. he has engaged a room in the same house and will make friends with m. the other two operatives, a.n. and s.c., are to trail him turn and turn about."

thus the ground was laid out. making my report in turn to mr. dunsany, i said: "it's all very well as far as it goes, but we must do some original work. tracking the theft of miss hamerton's pearls is following a cold trail. our work is destroyed by the fact that the jewels have been recovered. we must branch out."

"what do you propose?" said he.

"let us lay a tempting bait for a new robbery, and catch them red-handed."

"go ahead!"

"are you prepared to risk something choice in diamonds or pearls?"

"anything i have in stock."

"very well. first, however, we've got to get a man accepted into the inmost circle of the thief trust."