sceptically. "Then I take it you do
want the matter smothered?"

"But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it," said Mr. Prohack. "We
can't hush it up after that."

"I told _them_," replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head
the whole world of the house. "I told _them_ I was telephoning to
Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then
am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it
smothered?"

"Not at all. I have no reason for hushing anything up."

The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-class way, and Mr.
Prohack quailed a little before that glance.

"Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?"

"I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street."

"Oh! I see," said the detective. "A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over
half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory
where you bought it." The detective yawned.

"And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either," said Mr. Prohack. "I
have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the
necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then
opening again as something else."

"No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street," said the
detective, and yawned once more. "Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I
need trouble you any more to-night. If you or Mrs. Prohack will call at
our head-office during the course of to-morrow you shall have our
official report, and if anything really fresh should turn up I'll
telephone you immediately. Good night, Mr. Prohack." The man bowed
rather awkwardly as he rose from the bed, and departed.

"That chap thinks there's something fishy between Eve and me," reflected
Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high
spirits when Eve came back into the room.

"The sleuth-hound has fled," said he. "I must have given him something
to think about."

"I've tried all the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained.
"And yet you're always grumbling at me for not keeping my keys in order.
If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have you let him go?"

"My dear," said Mr. Prohack, "I didn't let him go. He did not consult
me, but merely and totally went."

"And what is the blue paper?" Eve demanded.

"Well, supposing it was the receipt for what I paid for the pearls?"

"Oh! I see. But how would that help?"

"It wouldn't help," Mr. Prohack replied. "My broken butterfly, you