to,' says he.--`Do you know what this is?' I asked,
holding up half-a-crown. `Yes, I know what that is well
enough.'--`Well, you've no need to be afraid of me; I'm not a policeman
in plain clothes,' says I. `Aren't you?' said he; `I thought you
was.'--`There, put that half-crown in your pocket,' I said, `and answer
me one or two civil questions.' `With all the pleasure in the world,'
says he, as brisk as could be.--Then I asked him if he remembered the
doctor's coming home on Christmas-eve last year. `Yes, he remembered
that very well.'--`Did he bring anything with him besides his own
luggage?' He looked rather hard at me.--`Nobody's going to get you into
trouble,' says I, rather sharp. `Have you lost anything?' he asks again
very cautiously.--I told him `yes, I had.' He wanted to know what it
were like, but that wouldn't do for me. So I asked my other question
over again. `Yes, the doctor brought a bag with him as didn't seem to
belong to him; at least he hadn't it with him when he left home.'--`What
sort of a bag?' says I. `It was a small bag, and a very shabby one
too.'--`And what did you do with it?' `I put it in the doctor's
study.'--`And is it there now?' `I suppose so; nobody never meddles
with any of the doctor's things.'--`And you haven't seen it, nor heard
anything about it since?' `No, I haven't.'--`Thank you, my boy; that's
all I want to know from you.'

"Then I asks the doctor to let me have five minutes alone with him,
which he granted me most cheerfully; and I just tells him as much as
were necessary to let him know what I wanted, and why I wanted it.--`A
bag,' he said; `ah, I do remember something about it now; but, if I
don't mistake, there was nothing but paper in it. However, it's pretty
sure to be in my closet, and if so it will be just as I put it there,
for no one goes to that closet but myself.' So he unlocks the closet
door, and comes back in a minute with a bag in his hand. `Is this it?'
he asks.--`I suppose it is,' says I, `for I never saw it; but we shall
soon find out.' The doctor had a key on his bunch which soon opened the
padlock, and then we turned out what was inside. Paper, nothing but
paper at first. I were getting in a bit of a fright; but after a bit we
comes to summat hard wrapped up; and there, when we unfolded the paper,
was the missing bracelet! And then we searched to the bottom, and found
an envelope sealed up and directed, `Miss Jane Bradly;' but what's
i