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pike had given him minute directions as to the position of the jewel-box. He found it without difficulty. To his untrained eye, it seemed tolerably massive and impregnable, but Spike had evidently known how to open it without much difficulty. The lid was shut, but it came up without an effort when he tried to raise it, and he saw that the lock had been broken. "Spike's coming on!" he said. He was dangling the necklace over the box, preparatory to dropping it in, when there was a quick rustle at the other side of the room. The curtain was plucked aside, and Molly came out. "Jimmy!" she cried. Jimmy's nerves were always in pretty good order, but at the sight of this apparition he visibly jumped. "Great Scott!" he said. The curtain again became agitated by some unseen force, violently this time, and from its depths a plaintive voice made itself heard. "Dash it all," said the voice, "I've stuck!" There was another upheaval, and his lordship emerged, his yellow locks ruffled and upstanding, his face crimson. "Caught my head in a coat or something," he explained at large. "Hullo, Pitt!" Pressed rigidly against the wall, Molly had listened with growing astonishment to the movements on the other side of the curtain. Her mystification deepened every moment. It seemed to her that the room was still in darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing; and then the light of the torch caught her eye. Who could this be, and why had he not switched on the regular room lights? She strained her ears to catch a sound. For a while, she heard nothing except the soft breathing. Then came a voice that she knew well; and, abandoning her hiding-place, she came out into the room, and found Jimmy standing, with the torch in his hand, over some dark object in the corner of the room. It was a full minute after Jimmy's first exclamation of surprise before either of them spoke again. The light of the torch hurt Molly's eyes. She put up a hand, to shade them. It seemed to her that they had been standing like this for years. Jimmy had not moved. There was something in his attitude that filled Molly with a vague fear. In the shadow behind the torch, he looked shapeless and inhuman. "You're hurting my eyes," she said, at last. "I'm sorry," said Jimmy. "I didn't think. Is that better?" He turned the light from her face. Something in his voice and the apologetic haste with which he moved the torch seemed to relax the stra
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