"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
This parade of innocence began to exasperate me. "Do you need to ask?" I said.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake don't play with words," he burst out. "Tell me what's the matter and be done with it."
"Miss Hamerton's pearl necklace was stolen from the theatre two months ago. She engaged me to recover it."
"Her pearls! Stolen!" he ejaculated, amazed. I could not have asked to see it better done.
"Do you still want me to go on?" I asked.
"Oh, drop the mystery!" he cried. "You fellows fatten on mystery!"
"As Faxon in the theatre I was perfectly sincere in my friendship for you," I went on. "I liked you. But little by little against my will I was forced to believe that you were the thief."
This touched him, but not quite in the way I expected. "Me? The thief?" he gasped—and suddenly burst into harsh laughter. "How did you arrive at that?"
I was no longer inclined to spare him. "In the first place you provoked a bet with Miss Hamerton which induced her to wear the real pearls on the night they were stolen."