The Leander pearls were stolen nineteen years ago. The thief was caught, but the pearls were never found, and there is still a $25,000 reward for anyone who finds them. Then somebody comes to private detective Carmady with a story about a guy who knows where the pearls are hidden.

Carmady agrees to talk to the guy who say he knows. But he finds him dead in his bed, with burned feet, and it seems there are quite a lot of people in Los Angeles who have heard the story, and who are out looking for the Leander pearls...

The Oxford bookworms library offers a wide range of original and adapted stories, both classic and modern, which take learners from elementary to advanced level through six carefully graded language stages:

Stage 1 (400 headwords)

Stage 2 (700 headwords)

Stage 3 (1000 headwords)

Stage 4 (1400 headwords)

Stage 5 (1800 headwords)

Stage 6 (2500 headwords)

This book is at stage 2.

At the end of this book, it supplies questions to help you check your reading comprehension.