"And here’s a point worth noticing: What I’m hired for is to get the jewels, not the thief. The party behind me isn’t out for vengeance or prosecution. If I could deliver the goods it would be all right and no questions asked. But the Whitneys wouldn’t stop there—they’re bloodhounds when it comes to the chase. If they got anything on Price they’d come down on him good and hard and Mrs. Janney’d stand in with them." He was looking with anxious intentness at Willitts’ profile. As he finished it turned slowly, until the face was offered in full to his watchful scrutiny. It was forbidding, the eyes sweeping him with a cold contempt: "I can’t ’elp understanding you, Larkin, and I’m sorry to ’ear you got your suspicions of my gentleman and of _me_. The first is too low to take notice of; the second is as bad, but I’ll answer it to put us both straight. I’m not the kind you take me for; I’m not to be bought. Even if I did know anything that would be ’useful’ as you say, wild ’orses wouldn’t drag it out of me. And no more will filthy lucre. Filthy—it’s the right name for it, you couldn’t get a better." He rose, not so much angry as hurt and haughty. "I can’t find it in me to sit ’ere any longer. I could talk of insults, but I won’t. All I’ll say is that I’ve 'ad a bit too much, and not wanting to ’ear more I’ll bid you good-night." Before the detective could find words to answer he had gone down the path and vanished in the darkness. CHAPTER XIII—MOLLY’S STORY One of the chief features of detective work is that you must be able to change your mind. That may not sound hard—especially when the owner of the mind happens to be a female—but believe me it’s some stunt. You get pointed one way, and to have to shift and face round in another is candy for a weather vane but bread for a sleuth. Well, that’s what happened to me. In the week that followed my visit to the Whitneys I had to start out fresh on a new line of thought. I’d left the office pretty certain, as the others were, that the bond between Esther Maitland and Chapman Price was love, and before those seven days were gone I’d thrown that theory into the discard, rolled up my sleeves, taken a cinch in my belt, and set forth to blaze a new trail. I came round to it slow at first and I came round through Mr. Ferguson. It was fine weather and when Bébita would go off with Annie, I’d curl up in my conning tower in the school room window and take observations. As I said before, it was a convenient place, just over Miss Maitland’s study, deserted all afternoon, and with the Venetian blinds down against the sun, I could sit comfortable on my cushion and spy out between the slats.