The Arabian Pearl — Marian J.A. Jackson

Mystery Writers of America Presents Miss Abigail Patience Danforth's cross-country journey is interrupted by train robbers who steal Marshal Bill Tilghman's foundation sire, an Arabian priceless as a pearl. Fresh from her heady success at retrieving the Punjat's ruby for the Prince of Wales, Miss Abigail Patience Danforth and her entourage are speeding toward San Francisco in a private railroad car when their journey is interrupted by train robbers. They murder her new friend, and steal her beloved horse, Crosspatches, along with Marshal Bill Tilghman's foundation sire-an Arabian priceless as a monarch's pearl. Far from the familiar boulevards of London and New York where she had schooled herself in the infant science of detection, Miss Danforth disdains the famous lawman's old-fashioned, slow methods of tracking fugitives across the vast wilderness that was then the Oklahoma Territory and creates her own—her only clue, the killer's love of chocolate.