Mrs.
Vanderheck with them in her ears, and a cross like one that we lost, so
he arrested her upon suspicion of both robberies, but somehow I am not
very sanguine that we shall recover the stones."

"Did you not see the cross?" Mona asked.

"No; Mr. Rider had deposited it somewhere for safe keeping. It will
be produced at the examination to-morrow. But, really, Mona," Ray
interposed, with a nervous laugh, "I feel worse over the fact of having
been so taken in by this pretended Mrs. Vanderbeck, than over the
pecuniary loss."

The poor fellow felt very much as Justin Cutler felt when he learned how
he had been tricked into paying a large price for the pair of paste
crescents.

"How did the woman look, Ray? Describe her to me," Mona said.

She experienced a strange fascination in the story with all its curious
details.

Ray gave a vivid word-picture of the beautiful woman, her dress, her
carriage, and even her driver, for everything connected with that
unexampled experience was indelibly stamped upon his mind.

"You say her dress was badly torn," Mona musingly observed, when he had
concluded the account of the discovery, and what had followed their
getting out of the carriage and entering Doctor Wesselhoff's office.

"Yes, there was quite a rent in it, and I imagine this circumstance was
not premeditated in the plan of her campaign, for she certainly was
annoyed to have the beautiful cloth torn, although she tried to make
light of it," Ray replied, then added: "And later in the day I found a
piece of the goods adhering to my clothing."

"Did you?" questioned Mona, eagerly.

"Yes, and if I should ever see that dress again I could easily identify
it, for I have the piece now and could fit it into the rent. But
doubtless my lady has disposed of that costume long before this. Here is
the piece, though--I have kept it, thinking it might possibly be of use
some time."

Ray drew forth his pocket-book as he spoke, opened it, took out a folded
paper, and handed it to Mona.

She opened it, and found carefully pinned within, a scrap of mauve
colored ladies' cloth, in the form of a ragged acute angle.

"It is almost like broadcloth--very fine and heavy," she exclaimed. "It
is a lovely color, too, and must have been a very beautiful costume."

"It was, and dangerously so," said Ray, dryly. "I admired it exceedingly,
especially the fit and make of it."

"I imagine it might have been found in some dye-house shortly aft