"Who's forgetting that I'm the boss now?" I said severely.
She made a face at me and went on: "It seems that Miss Hamerton and Roland Quarles had a bet on about the pearls."
This was something new. I pricked up my ears.
"She laughed at him because he thought he knew something about jewels, and she says he scarcely knows a pearl from an opal. They argued about it, and she finally bet him a box of cigars against a box of gloves that he wouldn't be able to tell when she wore the genuine pearls. That is how she came to wear them the night they were stolen."
"The devil!" I exclaimed.
"But he has never spoken about it since. She believes that he has forgotten all about the bet."
I walked up and down the room considering what this meant.
"You needn't look like that," said Sadie. "We know he didn't do it. Wouldn't he have paid his bet if he had?"
"It seems so," I said. I didn't know what to believe.
"There's another reason," said Sadie, "sufficient for a woman."