cantly.

"But if Ruth is a person of so much importance why did they let her
travel so far alone with those valuable pearls in her possession? Why
haven't they looked her up? I suppose she told you about the wreck
and--the rest of it?"

"She did, sang the praises of the family of Holiday in a thousand keys.
Your advertisements were all on the Annersley track you see and they
would all be out on the Farringdon one. The paths didn't happen to cross
I suppose."

"You don't know anything about, Geoffrey Annersley do you?" Larry asked
anxiously.

"Not a thing. We are jewelers not detectives or clairvoyants. It is only
the pearls we are up on and we've evidently slipped a cog on them. We
should have known when they came to the States but we didn't."

"I'll cable the American consul at Australia myself. It's the first
real clue we have had--the rest has been working in the dark. The first
thing though is to find Ruth." And Larry Holiday looked so very
determined and capable of doing anything he set out to do that Gary
Eldridge grinned a little.

"Wonderful what falling in love will do for a chap," he reflected. "Used
to think old Larry was rather a slow poke but he seems to have developed
into some whirlwind. Don't wonder considering what a little peach the
girl is. Hope the good Lord has seen fit to recall Geoffrey Annersley to
his heaven if he really did marry her."

Aloud he promised to telephone Larry the moment the owner of the pearls
crossed the threshold of Larrabee and Fitch and to hold her by main force
if necessary until Larry could get there. In the meantime he suggested
that she had seemed awfully interested in the Australia part of the story
and it was very possible she had gone to the--

"Library." Larry took the words out of his mouth and bolted without any
formality of farewell into the nearest subway entrance.

His friend gazed after him.

"And this is Larry Holiday who used to flee if a skirt fluttered in his
direction," he murmured. "Ah well, it takes us differently. But it gets
us all sooner or later."

Larry's luck had turned at last. In the reading room of the Public
Library he discovered a familiar blonde head bent over a book. He strode
to the secluded corner where she sat "reading up" on Australia.

"Ruth!" Larry tried to speak quietly though he felt like raising the
echoes of the sacred scholarly precincts.

The reader looked up startled, wondering. Her face lit with quick
delight.