A pleasant hour was spent in the library as Mr. Forbes told the girls anecdotes connected with his treasures, and also catechised them on what they had learned from their afternoon in his museum.

Dolly had taken the greatest interest in it, though Bernice soon proved that she had the best memory of them all, for she could tell dates and data that her uncle had informed them, and which the others more often forgot.

"I haven't any memory," sighed Dolly. "But I do love to see these things and hear about them. It's lots of work, isn't it, to get them all properly catalogued and labelled?"

"Yes, it keeps Fenn pretty busy, and often I bring in an assistant for him. But Fenn is a clever chap, and a quick worker."

Their chat was interrupted by Geordie Knapp and Ted Hosmer, who came over to call on the girls.

"Come right in, boys, glad to see you," was Mr. Forbes' hearty greeting. "I shouldn't wonder if our young friends here would be glad too. They've spent the whole afternoon with my old fogy talk and I'll warrant they'll be glad of a change."

"You, stay with us, Uncle, and enjoy the change, too," laughed Alicia, as Mr. Forbes was leaving the room.

"No, no; it doesn't seem to occur to you that I'd like a rest from a crowd of chatter-boxes!" His merry smile belied his words, and he went off leaving the young people together.

Mrs. Berry looked in, and hospitably invited the boys to stay to supper, which they willingly agreed to do.

Also, they stayed an hour or more after supper, and when at last they departed, the four girls remained in the library talking things over.

To their surprise, Mr. Forbes came to the room, and without a word sat down facing the group. Something in his expression caused the girls to stop their laughter and chatter, for the old gentleman looked decidedly serious.

"Well, my dears," and he looked from one to another, "have you had a pleasant day?"

"Yes, indeed," spoke up Alicia, and they all added words of assent.

"Well, I haven't," said Mr. Forbes, and they looked up at him with a startled air. "That is, I have just made a discovery that makes to-day one of the most unfortunate of my life."

"What is it, Uncle? What is the matter?"

Alicia spoke solicitously, as if she feared her uncle had become suddenly ill.

"I have met with a loss."

"A loss?" queried Bernice. "What have you lost?"

"One of my dearest possessions. I went to my museum just now, to that rear room which we were in last, and I discovered that one of my valuable pieces of jewellery is gone."

The girls stared at him blankly, and at last, Bernice said, "Which one?"

"The Byzantine earring, the gold filigree piece."

"Oh," cried Alicia, "that lovely piece! Why, where can it be?"

"I don't know," replied her uncle, slowly. "I searched everywhere, and as I couldn't find it, I came down here to ask if you girls had taken it as—as a joke on me."

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Alicia. "I'd scorn to do such a mean trick!
None of us would think of such a thing, would we, girls?"

"No, indeed," said they all, and then a silence fell. Where could the jewel be? As always, in moments of excitement, Dolly turned very pale while Dotty flushed furiously red. Alicia, sat, her big eyes staring with dismay and Bernice nervously picked at her handkerchief.

"Come now," said Mr. Forbes, "if any of you girls did take it, in jest, give it up, for it isn't a funny joke at all."

"Oh, we didn't! I'm sure none of us did!" and Dolly almost wailed in her earnest denial.

"Of course, we didn't!" declared Dotty, angrily. "You ought to know we're not that sort of girls! It must have been mislaid, or pushed behind something that conceals it from view."

"Probably you're right," and Mr. Forbes looked at her intently. "That's probably the solution of its disappearance. I'll have Fenn make search to-morrow. I'm sorry I bothered you about it. Good-night."

With his funny abruptness he left the room, and the girls sat looking at each other in amazement.

"Did you ever hear anything like that!" demanded Dotty, furiously. "The idea of thinking we would do such a thing! I hate practical jokes, unless among a lot of school chums. I wouldn't think of playing a joke on a grown-up!"

"Uncle Jeff hasn't had much experience with young folks," put in Alicia, by way of excuse for their host. "You know he always lives alone, and he doesn't know what girls would or wouldn't do."

"But how awful for that thing to be lost," mused Bernice. "Suppose it fell down behind a case, or somewhere, and he NEVER finds it!"

"Oh, his secretary will find it," said Dolly, hopefully. "It MUST be somewhere around. Don't let's talk about it. If we do, I shan't sleep a wink all night! I never do, if I worry."

"I think it's something to worry about," said Alicia. "It's the worst blow Uncle Jeff could have. You know how he adores his treasures. Why, he'd rather lose everything from these downstairs than one specimen out of those fourth story rooms. And that gold earring, of all things!"

"I tell you stop talking about it!" and Dolly clapped her hands over her ears. "Please, humour me in this," she added, smiling a little, "truly, it will keep me awake, if I get to worrying over it."

"All right, girls, let's drop the subject. Also, let's go to bed." It was Alicia who spoke, and she seemed under great excitement. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her cheeks were pink, and she moved jerkily, as if nervous.

So the four went up to their rooms, and saying good-night, they closed the door of communication between.

"What's the matter, Dollums?" asked Dotty, as she saw tears in the blue eyes.

"Nothing, Dot, only don't talk about that gold thing, will you? I just simply can't stand it if you do!"

"'Course I won't if you don't want me to, only what DO you s'pose DID become of it?"

"There you go! I think you're too mean for anything!"

"Oh, pshaw, I didn't mean to. I forgot. All right, no more talk 'bout that old rubbish. What shall us talk about?"

"Don't talk at all. I'd rather go to sleep."

"Go, then, old crossy! But I s'pose you don't mean to sleep in your clothes!"

"No," and Dolly laughed a little. "I know I'm an old bear, and a crosspatch, and everything horrid,—but I'm nervous, Dotty, I AM."

"I know it, old girl, but you'll get over it. I believe this city life is wearing you out! I believe it's time you went home."

"Oh, I think so, too. I wish we could go tomorrow!"

"Well, we can't. What has got into you, Dollyrinda? I believe you're homesick!"

"I am, Dotty! I'd give anything to see mother now.—I wish I was home in my own room."

"You'll be there soon enough. I s'pose we'll go Wednesday."

"Wednesday! that seems ages off!"

"Why, Dollums, to-morrow, you can say Wednesday is day after to-morrow! That's what I always do if I want to hurry up the days. But I don't want to hurry up our days in New York! No sir-ee! I love every one of 'em! I wish we could stay a month!"

"I don't!" and then there were few more words said between the two that night. Soon they were in bed, and if Dolly lay awake, Dotty didn't know it, for she fell asleep almost as soon as her dark curly head touched its pillow.

Meantime in the next room, the other two were talking.

"I do hope Uncle Jeff will find his old jewel," Bernice said, pettishly. "We won't have a bit more fun, if he doesn't." "That's so," agreed Alicia, "but he won't find it."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, 'cause. It's very likely fallen down some crack or somewhere that nobody'd think of looking. Why, once, a photograph was on our mantel, and it disappeared most mysteriously. And we never could find it. And after years, there was a new mantelpiece put in, and there was the picture! It had slipped down a narrow mite of a crack between the mantel-shelf and the wall back of it."

"Tell Uncle Jeff that to-morrow. Maybe it will help him to find the thing."

"All right, I will. But of course, Mr. Fenn will look everywhere possible. I don't believe anybody'll ever find it."

"Then Uncle will be cast down and upset all the rest of the time we're here."

"Well, I can't help that. What do you suppose, Bernice, he asked us here for, anyway?"

"You ask me that a hundred dozen times a day, 'Licia! I tell you I don't know, but I think it was only a whim. You know how queer he is. He forgets we're in this house from one evening to the next. If to-day hadn't been Sunday, we wouldn't have seen him this afternoon. I wish we were going to stay another week."

"So do I. But I don't like to ask him outright, and he hasn't said anything about it lately. The others couldn't stay, anyway."

"Oh, I don't know. I think if they were invited their mothers would let them. And anyway, I'd rather stay without them, than to go home."

"Yes, I would, too. Dot likes it better than Dolly."

"Yes, Dolly's homesick. Anybody can see that. But they like it when we go to places, and see sights."

"Who wouldn't? We're really having fairy-tale times, you know."

"I know it. I shall hate to go back to school."

"Well, I don't hate to go home. I have good enough times in Berwick; but I'd like to stay here one week more. I think I'll ask Uncle Jeff to let us, if he doesn't ask us himself."

"Wait till he finds his lost treasure. He'll be pretty blue if he doesn't get that back."

"Yes, indeed he will. Let's hope the Fenn man will spy it out. It must be in that room somewhere, you know."

"Of course it must. The secretary will find it. That's what secretaries are for."

And then silence and sleep descended on that room also.

Next morning, Mr. Forbes appeared at the breakfast table. This was the first time they had ever seen him in the morning and the girls greeted him cheerily.

"Very nice," he said, affably, "to come down and breakfast with a flock of fresh young rosebuds like you," and he seemed so good-natured, that Alicia decided he had taken his loss more easily than she had feared.

But toward the end of the meal, Mr. Forbes made known the reason of his early appearance.

"We can't find that earring," he said, suddenly. "Mr. Fenn and I have been looking since six o'clock this morning. Now I'm going to ask you girls to help me. Will you all come up to the museum and hunt? Your young eyes may discern it, where we older seekers have failed. At any rate, I'd like you to try."

The four expressed ready willingness, and they rose from the table and followed Uncle Jeff up the stairs to the rear room where the loss had occurred.

The sun shone in at the southern windows, and flooded the room with brightness. It seemed impossible to overlook the treasure, and surely it must be found at once.

A youngish man was there before them, and he was introduced as the secretary. Lewis Fenn was a grave looking, solemn-faced chap, who, it was evident took seriously the responsibility of his position as tabulator and in part, custodian of valuable treasures. He bowed to the girls, but said nothing beyond a word of greeting to each.

"You see," said Mr. Forbes, "I locked this room myself, after you girls
last evening, and nobody could get in to take the earring.
Consequently, it would seem that a close search MUST be efficacious.
So, let us all set to, and see what we can do in the way of discovery."

"Let's divide the room in four," suggested Mr. Fenn, "and one of you young ladies take each quarter."

"Good idea!" commented Uncle Jeff, "and we'll do just that. Alicia, you take this west end, next the door; Bernice, the east end, opposite; Dotty, the north side, and Dolly, the south side. There, that fixes it. Now, to work, all of you. I've exhausted my powers of search, and so has Fenn."

The two men sat down in the middle of the room, while the girls eagerly began to search. They were told not to look in the cases, but merely on tables or any place around the room where the jewel might have fallen or been laid.

"Who had it last?" asked Mr. Fenn, as the girls searched here and there.

Nobody seemed to know, exactly, and then Alicia said, suddenly, "Why, don't you know, Dolly hooked it onto the front of her dress, and said it would make a lovely pendant."

"But I took it off," said Dolly, turning white.

"Where did you put it then?" asked Mr. Fenn, not unkindly, but curiously.

"Let me see," faltered Dolly, "I don't quite remember. I guess I laid it on this table."

"If so, it must be there now, my dear," said Mr. Forbes, suavely. "Look thoroughly."

Dolly did look thoroughly, and Dotty came over to help her, but the earring was not on the table.

Nor was it on other tables that were about the room; nor on any chair or shelf or settee or window-sill.

"Where CAN it be?" said Dotty, greatly alarmed, lest Dolly's having fastened it to her dress should have been the means of losing it.

"Are you sure you removed it from your frock, Miss Fayre?" asked Fenn, and at that moment Dolly took a dislike to the man. His voice was low and pleasant, but the inflection was meaning, and he seemed to imply that Dolly might have worn it from the room.

"Of course, I am," Dolly replied, in a scared, low voice, which trembled as she spoke.

"There's an idea," said Mr. Forbes. "Mightn't you have left it hooked into your lace, Dolly, and it's there still? Run and look, my dear."

"I'll go with you," said Dotty, but Fenn said, "No, Miss Rose, you'd better stay here."

Dotty was so astonished at his dictum that she stood still and stared at him. Dolly ran off to her room on the second floor and carefully examined the dress she had worn the day before.

"No," she said, on her return, "it isn't on my dress. I knew it couldn't be,—I should have seen it when I undressed. Besides, I know I took it off here, only a moment after I tried it on. I merely looked at it an instant, and then I unhooked it and laid it on this table."

"But at first, you weren't sure that you did place it on that table,
Miss Fayre," came the insinuating voice of Fenn once more.

"Yes, I did, I'm sure of it now," and Dolly's white face was drawn with anxiety.

"Think again." counselled the secretary.

"Maybe you took it off, and absent-mindedly slipped it in your pocket."

CHAPTER XIII

SUSPICIONS

Dotty turned on Fenn like a little fury. "What do you mean?" she cried.
"Are you accusing Dolly of stealing that thing?"

"There, there," said Mr. Forbes, placatingly, "Of course, Fenn didn't mean that. Not intentionally, that is. But without thinking, couldn't—"

"No, she couldn't!" stormed Dotty. "Dolly Fayre doesn't go around pocketing people's jewels unconsciously! She isn't a kleptomaniac, or whatever you call it! She did exactly as she says she did. She laid that earring on that table."

"Then why isn't it there now?" asked Fenn.

"Because somebody else moved it. Oh, don't ask me who. I don't KNOW who! And I don't CARE who! But Dolly put it there, and whoever took it away from there can find it! Perhaps YOU, can, Mr. Fenn!"

The secretary looked at the angry girl with an irritating smile.

"I wish I might, Miss Rose. But I've searched the room thoroughly, as you all have, too. It can't be HERE, you know."

"I'll tell you," said Alicia, eagerly, and then she described how in her home a photograph had slipped down behind the mantel and had been lost for years.

"Let us see," and Mr. Forbes went to the mantel in the room. But there was not the least mite of a crack between the shelf and the wall. Alicia's suggestion was useless.

"But," she said, "there might be that sort of a hiding-place somewhere else. Let's look all over."

The girls tried hard to find some crack or crevice in any piece of furniture, into which the trinket might have slipped, but there was none. They felt down between backs and seats of chairs, looked behind cases of treasures, moved every book and paper that lay on the tables, even turned up the edges of rugs, and peeped under.

"It doesn't make any difference how much we look," Dotty declared, "we've just got to look more,—that's all. Why, that earring is in this room, and that's all there is about that! Now, it's up to us to find it. You know, after you search all the possible places, you have to search the impossible ones."

"I admire your perseverance," said Mr. Forbes, "but I can't hope it will be rewarded. It isn't as if we were hunting for a thing that somebody had purposely concealed, that would mean an exhaustive search. But we're looking for something merely mislaid or tossed aside, and if we find it, it will be in some exposed place, not cleverly hidden."

"Oh, I don't know, Uncle Jeff," said Bernice, "you know when Alicia's photograph slipped behind the mantel, that was deeply hidden, although not purposely."

"Yes, that's so," and Uncle Jeff looked questioningly from one girl to another.

It was impossible to ignore the fact that he deemed one of them responsible for the disappearance of the jewel, and until the matter was cleared up, all felt under suspicion. Fenn, too, was studying the four young faces, as if to detect signs of guilt in one of them.

At last he said, "Let us get at this systematically. Who took the earring first, when Mr. Forbes handed it out from the case?"

"I did," said Dotty, promptly. "I stood nearest to Mr. Forbes and he handed it to me. After I looked at it, I passed it to Alicia."

"No, you didn't," contradicted Alicia. "I didn't touch it."

"Why, yes, 'Licia," Dotty persisted, "you took it and said—"

"I tell you I didn't! I never handled the things at all! It was
Bernice."

"I did have it in my hands," said Bernice, reflectively, "but I can't remember whether I took it from Dot or Alicia."

"I didn't touch it, I tell you!" and Alicia frowned angrily.

"Oh, yes, you did," said Dolly, "it was you, Alicia, who passed it on to me. And I took it—"

"You didn't take it from me, Dolly," and Alicia grew red with passion.
"I vow I never touched it! You took it from Bernice."

"No," said Dolly, trying to think. "I took it from you, and I held it up and asked you how it looked."

"No, Doll, you asked me that," said Bernice, "and I said it was very becoming."

"You girls seem decidedly mixed as to what you did," said Mr. Fenn, with a slight laugh. "I think you're not trying to remember very clearly."

"Hold on, Fenn," said Mr. Forbes, reprovingly. "It's in the girls' favour that they don't remember clearly. If they tossed the thing aside carelessly, they naturally wouldn't remember."

"But, Mr. Forbes," and the secretary spoke earnestly, "would these young ladies toss a valuable gem away carelessly? They are not ignorant children. They all knew that the earring is a choice possession. I'm sure not one of them would toss it aside, unheeding where it might fall!"

This was perfectly true. None of the four girls could have been so heedless as that! They had carefully handled every gem or curio shown them, and then returned it to Mr. Forbes as a matter of course.

Fenn's speech was rather a facer. All had to admit its truth, and the four girls looked from one to another and then at Mr. Forbes. He was studying them intently.

Bernice and Dolly were crying. Alicia and Dotty were dry-eyed and angry-faced. If one of the four had a secret sense of guilt, it was difficult to guess which one it might be, for all were in a state of excitement and were well-nigh hysterical.

"Much as I regret it," Mr. Forbes began, "I am forced to the conclusion that one or more of you girls knows something of the present whereabouts of my lost jewel. I do not say I suspect any of you of wilful wrong-doing, it might be you had accidentally carried it off, and now feel embarrassed about returning it. I can't—I won't believe, that any of you deliberately took it with intent to keep it."

"We thank you for that, Mr. Forbes," and Dotty's tone and the expression of her face denoted deepest sarcasm. "It is a comfort to know that you do not call us thieves! But, for my part, I think it is about as bad to accuse us of concealing knowledge of the matter. I think you'd better search our trunks and suitcases! And then, if you please, I should like to go home—"

"No doubt you would, Miss Rose!" broke in Fenn's cold voice. "A search of your belongings would be useless. If one of you is concealing the jewel, it would not be found in any available place of search. You would have put it some place in the house, not easy of discovery. That would not be difficult."

"Be quiet, Fenn," said Mr. Forbes. "Girls, I'm not prepared to say I think one of you has hidden the jewel, but I do think that some of you must know something about it. How can I think otherwise? Now, tell me if it is so. I will not scold,—I will not even blame you, if you have been tempted, or if having accidentally carried it off, you are ashamed to own up. I'm not a harsh man. I only want the truth. You can't be surprised at my conviction that you DO know something of it. Why, here's the case in a nutshell. I handed that earring to you, and I never received it back. What can I think but that you have it yet? It is valuable, to be sure, but the money worth of it is as nothing to the awfulness of the feeling that we have an untrustworthy person among us. Can it be either of my two nieces who has done this wrong? Can it be either of their two young friends? I don't want to think so, but what alternative have I? And I MUST know! For reasons which I do not care to tell you, it is imperative that I shall discover who is at fault. I could let the whole matter drop, but there is a very strong cause why I should not do so. I beg of you, my dear nieces,—my dear young friends,—I beseech you, tell me the truth, won't you?"

Mr. Forbes spoke persuasively, and kindly.

Alicia burst into a storm of tears and sobbed wildly. Bernice, her face hidden in her handkerchief, was crying too.

Dotty sat stiffly erect in her chair, her little hands clenched, her big, black eyes staring at Mr. Forbes in a very concentration of wrath.

Dolly was limp and exhausted from weeping.

With quivering lips and in a shaking voice, she said:

"Maybe one of us is a kleptomaniac, then, after all."

"Ah, a confession!" said Mr. Fenn, with his cynical little smile. "Go on, Miss Fayre. Which one has the accumulating tendency?"

"You do make me so mad!" exclaimed Dotty, glaring at him. "Uncle
Forbes, can't we talk with you alone?"

"Oh, no, little miss," said Fenn, "Mr. Forbes is far too easy-going to look after this affair by himself! He'd swallow all the stories you girls would tell him! I'll remain, if you please. Unless you have something to conceal, you can't object to my presence at this interesting confab."

Dolly came to Dotty's aid. She looked at the secretary with a glance of supreme contempt.

"It is of no consequence, Mr. Fenn," she said, haughtily, "whether you are present or not. Uncle Forbes, I agree with Dotty. You said yourself, you have an acquaintance who can't help taking treasures that are not his own. It may be that one of us has done this. But, even so, the jewel must be in the house. None of us has been out of the house since we were in this room yesterday afternoon. So, if it is in the house, it must be found."

"Ha! You HAVE hidden it securely, to be willing to have a thorough search of the house made!" and Fenn looked unpleasantly at her. "Own up, Miss Fayre; it will save a lot of trouble for the rest of us."

Dolly tried to look at the man with scorn, but her nerves gave way, and again she broke down and cried softly, but with great, convulsive sobs.

Dotty was furious but she said nothing to Fenn for she knew she would only get the worst of it.

"Come now, Dolly," said Mr. Forbes, in a gentle way, "stop crying, my dear, and let's talk this over. Where did you lay the earring when you took it from your dress?"

"On—on—the t-table," stammered Dolly, trying to stop crying. But, as every one knows, it is not an easy thing to stem a flood of tears, and Dolly couldn't speak clearly.

"Yes; what table?"

"This one," and Dotty spoke for her, and indicated the table by the south window.

"Where,—on the table?" persisted Uncle Jeff.

Dolly got up and walked over to the light stand in question.

"About here, I think," and she indicated a spot on the surface of the dull finished wood.

"Why didn't you hand it back to me?" queried Mr. Forbes, in a kind tone.

"I d-don't know, sir," Dolly sobbed again. "I'm sure I don't know why I didn't."

"I know," put in Dotty. "Because just then, Mr. Forbes showed us a bracelet that had belonged to Cleopatra, and we all crowded round to look at that, and Doll laid down the earring to take up the bracelet. We didn't suppose we were going to be accused of stealing!"

"Tut, tut," said Mr. Forbes. "Nobody has used that word! I don't accuse you of anything,—except carelessness."

"But when it comes to valuable antiques," interrupted Fenn, "it is what is called criminal carelessness."

"It WAS careless of Dolly to lay the earring down," said Mr. Forbes, "but that is not the real point. After she laid it down, just where she showed us, on that small table, somebody must have picked it up. Her carelessness in laying it there might have resulted in its being brushed off on the floor, but not in its utter disappearance."

"Maybe it fell out of the window," suggested Bernice, suddenly, "that window was open then, you know."

Mr. Forbes waited over to the table. "No," he said, "this stand is fully a foot from the window sill. It couldn't have been unknowingly brushed as far as that."

"Of course, it couldn't," said Fenn, impatiently. "You're making no progress at all, Mr. Forbes."

"Propose some plan, yourself, then," said Dotty, shortly; "you're so smart, suppose you point your finger to the thief!"

"I hope to do so, Miss Rose," and Fenn smirked in a most aggravating way. "But I hesitate to accuse anyone before I am quite sure."

"A wise hesitation!" retorted Dotty. "Stick to that, Mr. Fenn!"

She turned her back on him, and putting her arm round Dolly, sat in silent sympathy.

Suddenly Bernice spoke. She was not crying now, on the contrary, she was composed and quiet.

"Uncle Jeff," she said, "this is a horrid thing that has happened. I feel awfully sorry about it all, but especially because it is making so much trouble for Dolly and Dotty, the two friends that I brought here. Alicia and I belong here, in a way, but the others are our guests, as well as your guests. It is up to us, to free them from all suspicion in this thing and that can only be done by finding the earring. I don't believe for one minute that any one of us four girls had a hand, knowingly, in its disappearance, but if one of us did, she must be shown up. I believe in fairness all round, and while I'm sure the jewel slipped into some place, or under or behind something, yet if it DIDN'T,—if somebody did,—well,—steal it! we must find out who. I wouldn't be willing, even if you were, Uncle, to let the matter drop. I want to know the solution of the mystery, and I'm going to find it!"

"Bravo! Bernie, girl," cried her uncle, "that's the talk! As I told you I must know the truth of this thing,—never mind why, I MUST find it out. But how?"

"First," said Bernice, speaking very decidedly, but not looking toward the other girls, "I think all our things ought to be searched."

"Oh, pshaw, Bernie," said Alicia, "that would be silly! You know if any of us wanted to hide that earring we wouldn't put it in among our clothes."

"Why not?" demanded Bernice. "I can't imagine any of us having it, but if we have, it's by accident. Why, it might have caught in any of our dresses or sashes, and be tucked away there yet."

"That's so," and Dotty looked hopeful. "It could be, that as one of us passed by the table, it got caught in our clothing. Anyway, we'll all look."

"But don't look in your own boxes," objected Fenn. "Every girl must search another's belongings."

"I wonder you'd trust us to do THAT!" snapped Dotty, and Fenn immediately replied:

"You're right! It wouldn't be safe! I propose that Mrs. Berry search all your rooms."

"Look here, Fenn, you are unduly suspicious," Mr. Forbes remonstrated, mildly.

"But, sir, do you want to get back your gem, or not? You asked for my advice and help in this matter, now I must beg to be allowed to carry out my plans of procedure."

It was plain to be seen that Mr. Forbes was under the thumb of his secretary. And this was true. Lewis Fenn had held his position for a long time, and his services were invaluable to Jefferson Forbes. It was necessary that the collector should have a reliable, responsible and capable man to attend to the duties he required of a secretary, and these attributes Fenn fully possessed. But he was of a small, suspicious nature, and having decided on what course to pursue regarding the lost curio, he was not to be swerved from his path.

"Well, well, we will see," Mr. Forbes said, an anxious look wrinkling his forehead as he looked at the girls. "Run away now, it's nearly luncheon time. Don't worry over the thing. Each one of you knows her own heart. If you are innocent, you've no call to worry. If you are implicated, even in a small degree in the loss of my property, come to me and tell me so. See me alone, if you like. I will hear your confession, and if it seems wise, I will keep it confidential. I can't promise this, for as I hinted, I have a very strong reason for probing this affair to the very core. It is a mystery that MUST be cleared up!"