of a column,
waiting for them with a grin on his face. He pushed the electric button
for admittance as soon as they reached his side.

"What are you doing here?" demanded the lieutenant, trying hard to appear
angry with the boy.

"Why, I just come over to tell Frank--"

"Never mind that now," said the lieutenant, interrupting. "If this is the
way you obey orders you can't go to the Canal Zone with me."

"Well, you see," Jimmie began, in a contrite tone, "I thought of
something, after you left, that I wanted to say to Frank, and I knew he'd
have asked for me if he'd 'a' thought of it, so I just run over."

"What was it you wanted to say to Frank?" asked the lieutenant, with a
smile in Ned's direction. The persistence of the boy pleased him, to say
the least.

Just then the door was opened, saving Jimmie the exertion of manufacturing
a smooth tale to tell the lieutenant, and the three entered the great hall
of the fine residence, where they found Frank awaiting them.

"I was afraid you'd both left the clubroom and couldn't be found," he
cried, as he took his friends by the hand. "Come right up to my room, and
I'll show you just how the thieves got the emerald necklace."

"Perhaps we ought to see your father first," Lieutenant Gordon suggested,
thinking of something much more important, to him at least, than the
bauble.

"Father is with Doctor Benson just now," was the reply.

"Was he seriously injured?" asked Nestor, anxiously.

"Not a bit of it," was the reply. "They just sneaked up behind him and
stuffed a big handkerchief soaked with chloroform into his face. The drug
knocked him out for a short time, but he is all right now. He told me to
show you my room as soon as you came, and then to take you to him."

"Who else is in the house?" asked Nestor.

"No one but Doctor Benson and the servants," was the reply.

"Then the police have not been called?"

"No, indeed. I asked father to wait until you two came. I don't take much
stock in the cheap plain clothes men they send about on robbery cases. But
come on up to my room, and I'll show you what a sucker I am."

"If I had said that," Jimmie put in, "you'd 'a' handed me one."

"So Jimmie is on the case too," laughed Frank. "Well, son, there's money
in it for the man who restores my emerald necklace, which I'm sure to get
back, in the end. Why, that necklace has been stolen about a thousand
times, and has always been restored to the rightful owner. Once it