“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.

“Larry, oh Larry, I’m finding myself,” she whispered breathlessly.

“I’m glad but I’m gladder that I’m finding—­yourself.  Come on outside sweetheart.  I want to shout.  I can’t whisper and I won’t.  I’ll get us both put out if you won’t come peaceably.”

“I’ll come,” said Ruth meekly.

Outside in the corridor she raised blue eyes to gray ones.

“I didn’t mean you to find me—­yet,” she sighed.