e house searched?"

"Yes, Annie said Carter had come back and she went to waken him, but
although his door was locked inside, he did not answer. Annie and I
switched on all the lights on the lower floor from the top of the
stairs. Then we went down together and looked around. Every window and
door was locked, but in father's study, on the first floor, two drawers
of his desk were standing open. And in the library, the little
compartment in my writing-table, where I keep my house money, had been
broken open and the money taken."

"Nothing else was gone?"

"Nothing. The silver on the sideboard in the dining-room, plenty of
valuable things in the cabinet in the drawing-room--nothing was
disturbed."

"It might have been Carter," I reflected. "Did he know where you kept
your house money?"

"It is possible, but I hardly think so. Besides, if he was going to
steal, there were so many more valuable things in the house. My mother's
jewels as well as my own were in my dressing-room, and the door was not
locked."

"They were not disturbed?"

She hesitated.

"They had been disturbed," she admitted. "My grandmother left each of
her children some unstrung pearls. They were a hobby with her. Aunt Jane
and Aunt Letitia never had theirs strung, but my mother's were made into
different things, all old-fashioned. I left them locked in a drawer in
my sitting-room, where I have always kept them. The following morning
the drawer was unlocked and partly open, but nothing was missing."

"All your jewelry was there?"

"All but one ring, which I rarely remove from my finger." I followed her
eyes. Under her glove was the outline of a ring, a solitaire stone.

"Nineteen from--" I shook myself together and got up.

"It does not sound like an ordinary burglary," I reflected. "But I am
afraid I have no imagination. No doubt what you have told me would be
meat and drink to a person with an analytical turn of mind. I can't
deduct. Nineteen from thirty-five leaves sixteen, according to my mental
process, although I know men who could make the difference nothing."

I believe she thought I was a little mad, for her face took on again its
despairing look.

"We _must_ find him, Mr. Knox," she insisted as she got up. "If you know
of a detective that you can trust, please get him. But you can
understand that the unexplained absence of the state treasurer must be
kept secret. One thing I am sure of: he is being kept away. You don't
know what