CHAPTER XIV

SOME SLEUTH

"Now, stop right where you are," said Miss Solomons, as John Ryder started to rise. "I'll search you later--and that woman. I knew there was somethin' fishy about all this. I was a chump not to see into it right at the start. Of course Mrs. Judson is just the sort of a party a pair of crooks would get their hooks into."

"Say, are you crazy, or am I?"

"Sit down!"

At Ryder's second attempt to rise the house detective unlimbered her artillery. For the life of him Ryder could not guess where she could hide the big revolver about her person, she was so thin. Holding the weapon recklessly aimed in his direction, Miss Solomons began to search the sitting-room scientifically.

In the bed chamber Ruth could be heard soothing the refractory patient. Mrs. Judson was still bewailing the loss of her jewelry.

"My rings! My brooches! My necklace!" she kept repeating, her voice rising in crescendo until John Ryder thought the whole hotel would be roused and come crowding into his suite.

"But, Mrs. Judson," Ruth said, when the heavy lady stopped for breath, "you know you did not wear your necklace or a brooch here. Only your rings----"

"My rings! Where are my rings, then?" demanded the invalid, and the bed-spring creaked as she dropped upon it again. "I know I have been robbed!"

"Sure thing!" muttered Miss Solomons, still holding John Ryder under the point of her weapon while she poked into the umbrella stand near the door with his walking stick.

Then Ruth, in a very small voice: "Why, I--I took them off, Mrs. Judson."

"Ha!" was Miss Solomon's comment, leaving the umbrella stand.

"What for? My rings!" cried Mrs. Judson.

"The doctor told me to. We wanted to chafe your hands. I----"

"What did you do with them?" snapped Miss Solomons, and tore aside the curtain so as to get a view of the bed chamber.

This time Ryder rose up, pistol or not.

"Come away from there!" he commanded.

"Anybody but an idiot would see that my wife knows nothing about the woman's rings."

"Your wife? You mean your accomplice," sneered the house detective.

"By heaven! If you were only a man!" gasped Ryder, and took a stride toward Miss Solomons.

"This here's loaded," said that woman firmly, and stuck the barrel of her revolver against his waistband again. "No foolin' with me. Sit down. Come on out here, you!" she added over her shoulder to Ruth.

"Why--why, what is the matter?" the latter gasped, coming to the doorway. "Oh!"

"What did you do with the rings?" demanded the house detective.

She was still shoving against the pistol, and naturally John Ryder fell back before such pressure. When he dropped into the chair again Ruth screamed.

"Huh!" exclaimed Miss Solomons, seeing the direction of Ruth's frightened gaze. "That lamp, eh? Opened the oil tank and dropped 'em in, did you? Likely place! But 'tain't new. All you crooks have the old stuff. Not an original one among you."

She started for the table, still keeping Ryder covered.

"What do you want?" gasped Ruth.

"Mrs. Judson's rings," declared Miss Solomons decisively.

"I dropped them into the doctor's medicine case. He took them with him when he was called downstairs," Ruth said and then, blessed with a sense of the ridiculous, she began to giggle.

The house sleuth halted and looked from Ryder to his bride. Suspicion seemed fairly to sharpen her nose as she sniffed. "That's a likely story," she said.

Ryder took a hand, now having gained his self-control. "Do give us credit for some originality, Miss Solomons," he said. "If we have stolen Mrs. Judson's gems we naturally would have an accomplice on whom to plant them. Who more likely than the doctor?"

"Huh!" snorted Miss Solomons.

The doctor himself appeared at the moment The house detective sprang forward and seized his black case.

"What have you in this?" she demanded, having slipped her weapon out of sight.

"Enough poison to even satisfy you, My Lady Sleuth," remarked Dr. Hoyle, evidently having his own private opinion of the house detective. "What mare's nest have you uncovered now?"

"Mrs. Judson's rings have been nicked," observed Miss Solomons, quite unabashed.

"I--I dropped them into your case," said Ruth apologetically.

"So you did. Here they are," said the doctor, flashing the gems in question. "Satisfied, Miss Solomons? Then, if so, you and this--this gentleman, here, would better go away. You are likely to disturb my patient with your noise."

Miss Solomons pulled the folded novel from the bosom of her blouse.

"All right," she said shortly.

"You'd better go and help James watch Van Scamp's 'Cheesemonger,'" Ryder observed. "That's about your limit as a sleuth."

Miss Solomons, without changing countenance in the least, stalked away. Before the doctor could escape to the bedroom Ryder said:

"I don't fancy my wife staying here all night to attend this woman. She has had an exciting day and evening. You'll have another patient on your hands if you don't have a care."

Hoyle glanced at Ruth's laughing face and shook his head.

"Not as long as she sees the funny side of the situation," he observed.

"It is an imposition!" declared Ryder, with more heat.

"Undoubtedly," observed the doctor, with a shrug of his shoulders; but Ruth placed her little pink palm, light as a rose leaf, upon his lips.

"Don't speak so, Johnny," she whispered. "She needs some woman about her at this time."

"She's not sick."

"But she thinks she is--which is worse," laughed Ruth. Then to the doctor: "Don't mind him. He is the most indulgent of husbands after all. I will remain. I told you that I have been trained to the work of nursing."

"I see you have, Madam," said the doctor cheerfully, and he went into the other room where Mrs. Judson lay groaning and sobbing on the bed.

John Ryder, much vexed but in control of himself now, said decidedly:

"Even the most indulgent husband must put down his foot some time, Ruth. If that woman is not well enough to be removed to her own rooms by morning we will let her have this apartment and take another suite. You can play the Good Samaritan until then if you so desire. But remember! after this, and for the remainder of our honeymoon, if we see any despoiled victim lying by the roadside we will emulate the Jews and pass by on the other side."

He did not even kiss her as he passed out, and Ruth stood looking after him with quivering lips. Everything that had gone before was by chance, and unlucky. But this was actually the first jarring note in the honeymoon!