The Private Eye

the manor. Aunt Agatha told me privately that I was to sell the brooch if it ever became necessary in order to keep Peregrine Manor running.”
    “But why? What's so important about keeping the manor?”
    Maggie gave him a startled glance. “It's their home.”
    “Whose home? You mean Shirley's, Odessa's, and the Colonel's?”
    “Right. If the day ever came when the inn could no longer pay its own way as a hotel. Aunt Agatha wanted to be sure it could still shelter her friends.”
    Josh whistled softly. “Are you telling me your aunt left that kind of responsibility on your shoulders?”
    Maggie frowned. “She didn't exactly force it on me.
    She talked it over with me many times before we made the decision. I didn't mind, really. You see, I've always thought running Peregrine Manor would be fun. And it is. To me, it's the ideal job. I learned a lot about inn keeping while working here during the summers. And I must say, the manor was doing very well before the trouble started a few months ago.”
    “But now you're not doing so well,” Josh suggested.
    “And the brooch is gone. Probably stolen long ago by some thief who posed as a guest in order to get access to it,”
    “I don't think so,” Maggie said slowly.
    “Did you aunt wear the brooch in public?”
    “Certainly. Once in a while.”
    Josh nodded grimly. “Then a lot of people knew she owned it and that she didn't keep it in a safe-deposit box. Believe me, Maggie, it's probably long gone.”
    “Even if you're right, that doesn't mean my theory about the reason behind the trouble around here is wrong,” she pointed out, looking stubborn all of a sudden. “Someone might have decided the brooch is lost somewhere in this house, which is very likely, and has decided to look for it. In order to do that, he has to get the rest of us out. At least for a while.”
    Josh drummed his fingers on the bed, trying to be patient. “Tell me something, Maggie. What are you going to do if you can't save the manor for your aunt's friends?”
    She sighed unhappily. “I don't really know. None of them have much in the way of financial resources. I know Odessa talks about her stock holdings, but Aunt Agatha once told me Odessa had purchased that mining stock years ago and never seemed to get any dividends.”
    Josh smiled briefly. “Which pretty much eliminates one theory, doesn't it?”
    Maggie returned his smile with a wry one of her own.
    “You mean the one about the three nephews who are furious about being left out of the will? Yes, I'm afraid so. But I haven't had the courage to tell Odessa that.
    She's so proud. Being a possessor of stock is very important to her.”
    “Well, I'll check it out-just to be thorough. If I discover that the stock really is worthless, maybe I can find a tactful way of telling Odessa her nephews aren't trying to terrorize her without having to inform her that the stock is no good,” Josh suggested.
    “That would be very nice of you.”
    “So, what will you do if you can't find a way to keep the manor open for those three, Maggie?” he asked again.
    “I don't know,” she admitted. “All I can do is try.”
    He had been right, Josh thought. A naive little lady Don Quixote, tilting at windmills on behalf of the weak and the innocent. “It's a waste of time, you know.”
    “What is?”
    “Playing hero. Never pays.”
    She gave him a searching look. “How would .you know?”
    “Experience,” he said, and was amazed at the sudden harshness in his own voice. “How the hell do you think I got started in this business in the first place?”
    “Because you wanted to rescue people?”
    His jaw tightened. “When I first started, the last thing I planned to do was create a corporation like Business Intelligence and Security. I was just a one-man operation in the beginning. I had some damn fool idea that I could help balance the scales of justice for those who couldn't do it on their own. Like I said, I wanted to play Sir Galahad. I wanted to charge off to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.”
    “What happened?” she asked gently.
    Josh wished he had never started this conversation.
    But for some reason he couldn't seem to stop it now.
    “What happened was that I eventually learned that it's damn tough to play hero because it's often impossible to tell the bad guys from the good guys. That's what happened.”
    “I don't understand.”
    “Hell, Maggie, during my first five years as an investigator I took on