“That-there is what started things,” Jeff told Dick. “The missus was in her private suite, in the dressing bowdoir or whatever it is, with nobody but her French maid to help, and all the jewels in a box in the room, hid in her trunks.”
“What happened?” Sandy could hardly check his eagerness to learn.
“She was all but ready, dolled up like a circus, I guess,” Jeff grinned, and then became very sober. “All the jewelry was spread out to try how this and that one looked, with her clothes, separate and in different combinations.”
“But what happened?” persisted Sandy.
“There comes a banging on that-there suite door to the hall and a voice hollered, like it was scared to death, ‘Fire! Fire—get out at once!’”
“Didn’t she suspect any trick—was there a trick?”
“She didn’t have time to think. That French maid went crazy and started to hop around like a flea in a hot pan, and yelling, and it upset the missus so much she forgot all about a fire escape on the end window of the suite, and rushed out, snatching up all the strings of beads and pearls and the pins she could carry. But, because she knew it was only imitation and there wasn’t anybody else around anyway, she didn’t bother about the emerald necklace.”
“It was a false alarm—there was no fire!” Larry decided.
“All she found was a paper of burnt matches outside in the hotel corridor that had been set off so when she opened the door she’d smell smoke. Of course she ran back—and——”
As he reached for the letter, and searched on the fourth page, all three of his listeners were holding their breath in suspense.