The Westerner’s square jaw fell. “Why not?”
“Because there’s no such person as Henry M. Gillespie, of Locke, New York. I’ve just sent there and found out.”
Three stones of the fire-blue necklace returned on the current of advertised appeal. One was brought in by the night bartender of a “sporting” club. He had bought it from a man who had picked it up in a gutter; just where, the finder couldn’t remember. For the second a South Brooklyn pawnbroker demanded (and received) an exorbitant reward. A florist in Greenwich, Connecticut, contributed the last. With that patient attention to detail which is the A. B. C. of detective work, Average Jones traced down these apparently incongruous wanderings of the stones and then followed them all, back to Mrs. Hale’s fire-escape.
The bartender’s stone offered no difficulties. The setting which the pawnbroker brought in had been found on the city refuse heap by a scavenger. It had fallen through a grating into the hotel cellar, and had been swept out with the rubbish to go to the municipal “dump.” The apparent mystery of the florist was lucid when Jones found that the hotel exchanged its shop-worn plants with the Greenwich Floral Company. His roaming eye, keen for every detail, had noticed a row of tubbed azaleas within the ground enclosure of the Denton. Recalling this to mind, it was easy for the Ad-Visor to surmise that the gem had dropped from the fire-escape into a tub, which was, shortly after, shipped to the florist. Thus it was apparent that the three jewels had been stripped from the necklace by forcible contact with the iron rail of the fire-escape at the point where Average Jones had found the “color” of precious metal. The stones were identified by Kirby, from a peculiarity in the setting, as the end three, nearest the clasp at the back; a point which Jones carefully noted. But there the trail ended. No more fire-blue stones came in.
For three weeks Average Jones issued advertisements like commands. The advertisements would, perhaps, have struck the formal-minded Kirby as evidences of a wavering intellect. Indeed, they present a curious and incongruous appearance upon the page of Average Jones’ scrapbook, where they now mark a successful conclusion. The first reads as follows:
OH, YOU HOTEL MEN! Come through with the dope on H. M. G. What’s he done to your place? Put a stamp on it and we’ll swap dates on his past performances. A. Jones, Astor Court Temple, New York City.
This was spread abroad through the medium of Mine Host’s Weekly and other organs of the hotel trade.
It was followed by this, of a somewhat later date:
WANTED-Slippery Sams, Human Eels, Fetter Kings etc Liberal reward to artist who sold Second-hand amateur, with instructions for use. Send full details, time and place to A. Jones, Court Temple, New York City.
Variety, the Clipper and the Billboard scattered the appeal broadcast throughout “the profession.” Thousands read it, and one answered it. And within a few days after receiving that answer Jones wired to Kirby: