at had baffled the whole of the Seabourne
police.

And as Hilary sat there pluming herself on her cleverness and lost in the
pleasant dreams of the fame that would be shortly hers, the door opened,
and Margaret, who had only just come back and was still in her outdoor
things, walked into her bedroom.

It was not until she had advanced some way into the room that she saw
Hilary, and then Margaret came to a sudden halt in sheer amazement at the
scene that greeted her. Her astonished gaze travelled from Hilary round
her room, with its disordered aspect, its open cupboards and ransacked
drawers, and then she looked again at Hilary, who, with the open morocco
case in her hand, met her eyes defiantly.

"Will you tell me, please, what you mean by this conduct, Hilary?" she
said, feeling almost too amazed to be angry.

"Oh yes, I will tell you fast enough," Hilary said, who had been as taken
aback by Margaret's sudden entry as the latter had been to find her
there, and who, considerably to her own surprise and annoyance, was
conscious of a distinct feeling of shame at the position in which she had
been caught. But as she scrambled to her feet and faced Margaret she
shook off that feeling. After all, it was for the latter to feel ashamed,
not for her.

"You are found out," she said slowly and emphatically. "I have found you
out."

"So," Margaret thought then, "it had come at last. Hilary, poking among
her possessions, had somehow discovered her real name. Oh, poor Eleanor!
What would happen to her now?"

"You ask me what I mean by coming into your room; but that's nothing. It
is for you to explain how you dared to come into our house, a thief and
a burglar like you. But I," throwing out her arm dramatically, "have
unmasked you."

If Hilary had not been too excited by the vigour of her own denunciation
to notice Margaret's expression, she might have been bewildered by the
look of very decided relief which succeeded to the one of startled dismay
with which Margaret had listened to the beginning of her speech. What
Hilary had discovered, or fancied she had discovered, really did not
matter as long as her secret and Eleanor's was safe.

"Please give me that case at once," she said; "I am afraid, if you wave
it about like that, you will drop it, and I value it very much. You had
no right to come into my room and meddle with my things, and poke and pry
in all my drawers."

"Meddle, and poke, and pry! How dare you use such