temperament: "You are
displeased, Miss Butterworth, because we did not let _you_ find the
rings."

"Perhaps; but we were engaged in an open field. I could not expect the
police to stand aside for me."

"Exactly! Especially when you have the secret satisfaction of having put
the police on the track of these jewels."

"How?"

"We were simply fortunate in laying our hands on them first. You, or
your maid rather, showed us where to look for them."

Lena again.

I was so dumfounded by this last assertion, I did not attempt to reply.
Fortunately, he misinterpreted my silence and the "stony glare" with
which it was accompanied.

"I know that it must seem to you altogether too bad, to be tripped up at
the moment of your anticipated triumph. But if apologies will suffice to
express our sense of presumption, then I pray you to accept them, Miss
Butterworth, both on my own part and on that of the Superintendent of
Police."

I did not understand in the least what he was talking about, but I
recognized the sarcasm of his final expression, and had spirit enough to
reply:

"The subject is too important for any more nonsense. Whereabouts in
Franklin Van Burnam's desk were these rings found, and how do you know
that his brother did not put them there?"

"Your ignorance is refreshing, Miss Butterworth. If you will ask a
certain young girl dressed in gray, upon what object connected with Mr.
Van Burnam's desk she laid her hands yesterday morning, you will have
an answer to your first question. The second one is still more easily
answered. Mr. Howard Van Burnam did not conceal the rings in the Duane
Street office for the reason that he has not been in that office since
his wife was killed. Regarding this fact we are as well advised as
yourself. Now you change color, Miss Butterworth. But there is no
necessity. For an amateur you have made less trouble and fewer mistakes
than were to be expected."

Worse and worse! He was patronizing me now, and for results I had done
nothing to bring about. I surveyed him in absolute amazement. Was he
amusing himself with me, or was he himself deceived as to the nature and
trend of my late investigations. This was a question to settle, and at
once; and as duplicity had hitherto proved my best weapon in dealing
with Mr. Gryce, I concluded to resort to it in this emergency. Clearing
my brow, I regarded with a more amenable air the little Hungarian vase
he had taken up on entering the room, a