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