the box in both hands, and came
hastily over to the table beside which he was standing. "You see?" she
said breathlessly, putting it down.

"The string was on it when I saw it last," he told her blankly....

Then the memory recurred of the man who had passed him at the door--the
man who, he suspected, had forced an entrance to his rooms....

Alison was plucking nervously at the cover without lifting it.

"Why don't you look?" he demanded, irritated.

"I--I'm afraid," she said in a broken voice.

Nevertheless, she removed the cover.

For a solid, silent minute both stared, stupefied. The hat they knew so
well--the big black hat with its willow plume and buckle of
brilliants--had vanished. In its place they saw the tumbled wreckage of
what had once been another hat distinctly: wisps of straw dyed purple,
fragments of feathers, bits of violet-coloured ribbon and silk which,
mixed with wads and shreds of white tissue-paper, filled the box to
brimming.

Staff thrust a hand in his pocket and produced the knot of violet
ribbon. It matched exactly the torn ribbon in the box.

"So that," he murmured--"that's where this came from!"

Alison paid no attention. Of a sudden she began digging furiously in the
debris in the box, throwing out its contents by handfuls until she had
uncovered the bottom without finding any sign of what she had thought to
find. Then she paused, meeting his gaze with one half-wrathful,
half-hysterical.

"What does this mean?" she demanded, as if ready to hold him to account.

"I think," he said slowly--"I'm strongly inclined to believe it means
that you're an uncommonly lucky woman."

"How do you make that out?" she demanded in a breath.

"I'll tell you," he said, formulating his theory as he spoke: "When I
came home tonight, a man passed me at the door, fairly running out--I
fancy, to escape recognition; there was something about him that seemed
familiar. Then I came up here, found my door ajar, when I distinctly
remembered locking it, found my windows shut and the shades drawn, when
I distinctly remembered leaving them up, and finally found this knot of
ribbon on the floor. I was trying to account for it when you drove up.
Now it seems plain enough that this fellow knew or suspected you of
hiding the necklace in the hat, knew that I had it, and came here in my
absence to steal it. He found instead this hat, and knowing no better
tore it to pieces trying to find what he was after."

"But