ble; only semiprecious. The devil of it is that
they're the subject of an Indian legend. The Indians and Mexicans call
them "blue fires," and say they have the power to bind and loose in
love. Edna has been out in that country; she's naturally high strung and
responsive to that sort of thing, as I told you, and she fairly soaked
in all that nonsense. To make it worse, when I sent them to her I wrote
that--that--" a dull red surged up under the tan skin--"that as long as
the fire in the stones burned blue for her my heart would be all hers.
Now the necklace is gone. You can imagine the effect on a woman of that
temperament. And you can see the result." He pointed with a face of
misery to the solitaire on his watch-chain. "She insisted on giving
this back. Says that a woman as careless as she proved herself can't be
trusted with jewelry. And she's hysterically sure that misfortune
will follow us for ever if we're married without recovering the fool
necklace. So she's begged a postponement."

"Details," said Average Jones crisply.

"She's here at this hotel. Has a small suite on the third floor. Came
down from her home in central New York to meet my mother, whom she had
never seen. Mother's here, too, on the same floor. Night before last
Mrs. Hale thought she heard a noise in her outer room. She made a
look-see, but found nothing. In the morning when she got up, about ten
(she's a late riser) the necklace was gone."

"Where had it been left?"

"On a stand in her sitting-room."

"Anything else taken?"

"That's the strange part of it. Her purse, with over a hundred dollars
in it, which lay under the necklace, wasn't touched."

"Does she usually leave valuables around in that casual way?"

"Well, you see, she's always stayed at the Denton and she felt perfectly
secure here."

"Any other thefts in the hotel?"

"Not that I can discover. But one of the guests on the same floor with
Mrs. Hale saw a fellow acting queerly that same night. There he sits,
yonder, at that table. I'll ask him to come over."

The guest, an elderly man, already interested in the case, was willing
enough to tell all he knew.

"I was awakened by some one fumbling at my door and making a clinking
noise," he explained. "I called out. Nobody answered. Almost immediately
I heard a noise across the hall. I opened my door. A man was fussing at
the keyhole of the room opposite. He was very clumsy. I said, 'is that
your room?' He didn't even look at