lias Mrs. Marlow, knew each other at all--outside business? But it's not
much use to speculate on that just now--we've more urgent matters to
attend to. And first--this!"

He had put a copy of a morning newspaper round the small brown paper
parcel, and now took it off and showed the parcel itself to the two
wondering men. One of them at any rate uttered a sharp exclamation.

"Brown paper, sealed with black wax!" said Allerdyke, remembering what
Chettle had told him. "Good Lord--what--"

"I don't suppose this is the original brown paper, nor these the
original dabs of black wax," remarked the chief as he produced a pocket
pen-knife. "But this parcel, gentlemen, was recently confided by Miss
Slade to the care of the manageress of the Pompadour, to be put in the
hotel safe--from which it was produced to me twenty minutes ago. And--I
am now going to see what it contains."

The others sat in absorbed silence while the chief delicately removed the
wrappings of the mysterious parcel. A sheet of brown paper, a sheet of
cartridge paper beneath it--and within these very ordinary envelopings an
old cigar-box, loosely tied about with a bit of knotted string.

"Now for it!" said the chief. "The box contains--"

He raised the lid as the other two leaned nearer. A stray ray of
sunlight, filtering through the swaying boughs of the hawthorn, shot down
on the box as the chief lifted a wad of soft paper and revealed a
glittering mass of pearls and diamonds.

"The Princess Nastirsevitch's jewels!" said the chief softly. "That's
just what I expected ever since the manageress gave me this parcel. This,
of course, is the parcel which your cousin sent that night from Hull, Mr.
Allerdyke. It fell into Mrs. Marlow's hands--alias Miss Slade--and here
it is! That's all right."

The other two men stared at the contents of the cigar-box, then at the
chief, then at each other. A deep silence had fallen--it was some minutes
before Allerdyke broke it.

"All wrong, I should say!" he muttered. "However, if those are the
things--I only say if, mind--I suppose we're a step nearer to something
else. But--what?"

The chief, who appeared to both of them to be strangely phlegmatic about
the whole affair, proceeded to close the box, re-invest it in its
wrappings, and tie it about with the original string.

"We are certainly a step nearer to a good deal," he said, making a neat
job of his parcel and patting it affectionately as if he had been a
mill