gerland" and bore the label of the hospital.

Lydia sat back in the car with her eyes closed, tired of turning over
this problem, yet determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Jean was out when she got back and she carried the parcel to her own
room. She was trying to keep out of her mind the very possibility that
such a hideous crime could have been conceived as that which all the
evidence indicated had been attempted. Very resolutely she refused to
believe that such a thing could have happened. There must be some
explanation for the presence of the cross in her bed. Possibly it had
been found after the wet sheets had been taken to the servants' part of
the house.

She rang the bell, and the maid who had given her the trinket came.

"Tell me," said Lydia, "where was this cross found?"

"In your bed, mademoiselle."

"But where? Was it before the clothing was removed from this room or
after?"

"It was before, madame," said the maid. "When the sheets were turned
back we found it lying exactly in the middle of the bed."

Lydia's heart sank.

"Thank you, that will do," she said. "I have found the owner of the
cross and have restored it."

Should she tell Jean? Her first impulse was to take the girl into her
confidence, and reveal the state of her mind. Her second thought was to
seek out old Jaggs, but where could he be found? He evidently lived
somewhere in Monte Carlo, but his name was hardly likely to be in the
visitors' list. She was still undecided when Marcus Stepney called to
take her to lunch at the Cafe de Paris.

The whole thing was so amazingly improbable. It belonged to a world of
unreality, but then, she told herself, she also was living in an unreal
world, and had been so for weeks.

Chapter XXV

Mr. Stepney had become more bearable. A week ago she would have shrunk
from taking luncheon with him, but now such a prospect had no terrors.
His views of things and people were more generous than she had expected.
She had anticipated his attitude would be a little cynical, but to her
surprise he oozed loving-kindness. Had she known Mr. Marcus Stepney as
well as Jean knew him, she would have realised that he adapted his
mental attitude to his audience. He was a man whose stock-in-trade was a
knowledge of human nature, and the ability to please. He would no more
have attempted to shock or frighten her, than a first-class salesman
would shock or annoy a possible customer.

He had goods to