ly planned-for moment when she could bring home
Margaret's guilt to her had, in Hilary's confident estimation, at length
arrived. A few minutes since, rummaging in the dressing-room next
Margaret's room in search of some gloves that needed cleaning, she had
chanced to espy under the bed the trunk in which the boys had hidden the
Colonel's property. They had supposed it to belong to their mother, but
Hilary knew that it was Eleanor's.

Rendered thoroughly uneasy by the continued stir that Colonel Baker was
making about his loss, Jack and Noel had determined to smuggle his things
out of their house and to deposit them somewhere in his garden, where he
could easily find them, and to that end they had been trying, but without
success so far, to open the trunk with various keys belonging to their
mother. And it was the sight of these keys scattered about beside the
trunk that had fired Hilary's detective ardour. What was Eleanor doing
with her mother's keys? It could be for no good purpose that she had
secreted them under the bed.

Without more ado, Hilary made up her mind to search that trunk. And the
first thing to be done was to secure herself against interruption. So she
invented an errand to take Eleanor out of the house for an hour or two.
The others were all down at the rink, and having seen Margaret start,
Hilary sped up to the box-room, secured a few keys, and set to work.

Two or three keys were tried in vain, but the fourth turned easily in the
lock, and with hands that fairly trembled with excitement, she threw back
the lid. The tray was empty. She lifted it out, and as she did so gave
vent to a little cry of triumph. For there, at the bottom, reposed a
bundle tied up in a gold embroidered scarlet Indian tablecloth which any
one in Seabourne who had read any recent numbers of the local papers
would have recognised immediately as Colonel Baker's missing property.

Literally pouncing upon it, Hilary dragged it out of the trunk and untied
the four knotted corners, when out fell the tumbled contents of the
Colonel's plate-basket--the big morocco case which contained his
family miniatures, his Etruscan bronze vase, and his collection of gold
coins.

All things considered, Hilary took her astonishing discovery very calmly.
After all, it was only what she had been expecting. Her chief sensation
at that moment was one of surprise that the trunk did not also contain
the proceeds of the two other robberies. Probably, h