"Precisely."
"What's it all about?" he cried irritably. "Why are you looking at me
like a policeman?"
"Look at me close," I said.
He stared at me angry and puzzled. "I have seen you before--more than
once----" Then his face changed. "Faxon!" he cried. "Is it Faxon?"
"The same," I said.
"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."