The officer looked baffled. "You must have had the back room full in view from thence; both the door and window."

"Quite so," replied Alice. "If you will sit down in it, you will perceive that I had uninterrupted view, and faced the doors of both

"I perceive so from here. And you saw no one enter!"

"No one did enter. It was impossible they could do so, without my observing it. Had either of the doors been only quietly unlatched, I must have seen."

"And yet the bracelet vanished!" interposed Colonel Hope. "They must have been confounded deep, whoever did it, but thieves are said to possess sleight of hand."

66

this."

They are clever enough for it, some of them," observed the officer.
Rascally villains! I should like to know how they accomplished

"So should I," significantly returned the officer. "At present it appears to me incomprehensible."

There was a pause. The officer seemed to muse; and Alice, happening to look up, saw his eyes stealthily studying her face. It did not tend to reassure her.

"Your servants are trustworthy; they have lived with you some time ?" resumed the officer, not apparently attaching much importance to what the answer might be.

"Were they all escaped convicts, I don't see that it would throw light on this," retorted Colonel Hope. "If they came into the room to steal the bracelet, Miss Seaton must have seen them."

"From the time you put out the bracelets, to that of the ladies coming up from dinner, how long was it?" inquired the officer of Alice. "I scarcely know," panted she, for, what with his close looks and his close questions, she was growing less able to answer. "I did not take particular notice of the elapse of time: I was not well yesterday evening."

"Was it half an hour?"

"Yes-I dare say-nearly so."

"Miss Seaton," he continued, in a brisk tone, "will you have any objection to take an oath before a magistrate-in private, you know— that no person whatever, except yourself, entered either of these rooms during that period ?"

Had she been requested to go before a magistrate and testify that she, herself, was the guilty person, it could scarcely have affected her more. Her cheek grew white, her lips parted, and her eyes assumed a beseeching look of terror. Lady Sarah Hope hastily pushed a chair behind her, and drew her down upon it.

"Really, Alice, you are very foolish to allow yourself to be excited about nothing," she remonstrated: "you would have fallen on the floor in another minute. What harm is there in taking an oath—and in a private room? You are not a Chartist or a Mormon-or whatever the people call themselves, who profess to object to oaths, on principle."

The officer's eyes were still keenly fixed on Alice Seaton's, and she cowered visibly beneath his gaze. "Will you assure me, on your sacred word, that no person did enter the room?" he repeated, in a low, firm

tone; which somehow carried to her the terrible belief that he believed she was trifling with him.

She looked at him; gasped, and looked again; and then she raised her handkerchief in her hand and wiped her damp and ashy face.

"I think some one did come in," whispered the officer in her ear: "try and recollect." And Alice fell back in hysterics.

Lady Sarah led her from the room, herself speedily returning to it. "You see how weak and nervous Miss Seaton is," was her remark to the officer, but glancing at her husband. "She has been an invalid for years, and is not strong like other people. I felt sure we should have a scene of some kind, and that is why I wished the investigation not to be gone into hurriedly."

"Don't you think there are good grounds for an investigation, sir?" testily asked Colonel Hope of the officer.

66

"I must confess I do think so, colonel," was the reply.

"Of course you hear, my lady. The difficulty is, how can we obtain the first clue to the mystery.'

"I do not suppose there will be an insuperable difficulty," observed the officer. "I believe I have obtained one.'

"You are a clever fellow, then," cried the colonel, "if you have obtained it here. What is it ?"

"Will Lady Sarah allow me to mention it-whatever it may bewithout taking offence?" continued the officer, looking at her ladyship. She bowed her head, wondering much.

"What's the good of standing upon ceremony?" peevishly put in Colonel Hope. Her lady ship will be as glad as we shall be, to get back her bracelet; more glad, one would think. A clue to the thief! Who can it have been ?"

The detective smiled.

When men are as high in the police force as he, they have learned to give every word its due significance. "I did not say a clue to the thief, colonel: I said a clue to the mystery." "Where's the difference ?"

"Pardon me, it is indisputably perceptible. That the bracelet is gone, is a palpable fact: but by whose hands it went, is as yet a mystery.' "What do you suspect?"

"I suspect," returned the officer, lowering his voice, "that Miss Seaton knows how it went."

There was a silence of surprise; on Lady Sarah's part, of indignation. "Is it possible that you suspect her?" uttered Colonel Hope.

66

'No," said the officer, "I do not suspect herself: she appears not to be a suspicious person in any way: but I believe she knows who the delinquent is, and that fear, or some other motive, keeps her silent. Is she on familiar terms with any of the servants?"

"But you cannot know what you are saying!" interrupted Lady Sarah. "Familiar with the servants! Miss Seaton is a gentlewoman, and has always moved in high society. Her family is little inferior to mine; and better-better than the colonel's," concluded her ladyship, determined to speak out.

"Madam," said the officer, "you must be aware that in an investigation of this nature, we are compelled to put questions which we do not expect to be answered in the affirmative. Colonel Hope will understand

what I mean, when I say that we called them feelers.' I did not expect to hear that Miss Seaton had been on familiar terms with your servants (though it might have been); but that question, being disposed of, will lead me to another. I suspect that some one did enter the room and make free with the bracelet, and that Miss Seaton must have been cognisant of it. If a common thief, or an absolute stranger, she would have been the first to give the alarm: if not on too familiar terms with the servants, she would be as little likely to screen them. So we come to the question-who could it have been?"

"May I inquire why you suspect Miss Seaton ?" coldly demanded Lady Sarah.

"Entirely from her manner; from the agitation she displays."

"Most young ladies, particularly in our class of life, would betray agitation at being brought face to face with a police-officer," urged Lady Sarah.

"My lady," he returned, "we are keen, experienced men; and we should not be fit for the office we hold if we were not. We generally do find lady witnesses betray uneasiness when first exposed to our questions, but in a very short time, often in a few moments, it wears off, and they grow gradually easy. It was not so with Miss Seaton. Her agitation, excessive at first, increased visibly, and it ended as you saw. I did not think it the agitation of guilt, but I did think it that of conscious fear. And look at the related facts: that she laid the bracelets there, never left them, no one came in, and yet the most valuable one vanished. We have many extraordinary tales brought before us, but not quite so extraordinary as that."

The colonel nodded approbation; Lady Sarah began to feel uncomfortable.

"I should like to know whether any one called whilst you were at dinner," mused the officer. "Can I see the man who attends to the hall door ?"

"Thomas attends to that," said the colonel, ringing the bell. "There is a side door, but that is only for the servants and tradespeople."

"I heard Thomas say that Sir George Danvers called while we were at dinner," observed Lady Sarah. "No one else. And Sir George did not go up-stairs."

The detective smiled. "If he had, my lady, it would have made the case no clearer."

"No," laughed Lady Sarah, "poor old Sir George would be puzzled what to do with a diamond bracelet."

"Will you tell me," said the officer, wheeling sharply round upon Thomas when he entered, "who it was that called here yesterday evening, while your master was at dinner? I do not mean Sir George Danvers; the other one."

Thomas visibly hesitated: and that was sufficient for the lynx-eyed officer. "Nobody called but Sir George, sir," he presently said.

The detective stood before the man, staring him full in the face with a look of amusement. "Think again, my man," quoth he. "Take your time. There was some one else."

The colonel fell into an explosion: reproaching the unfortunate Thomas with having eaten his bread for five years, to turn round upon the house

3

and its master at last, and act the part of a deceitful, conniving wretch, and let in that swindler

"He is not a swindler, sir," interrupted Thomas.

"Oh no, not a swindler," roared the colonel, "he only steals diamond bracelets."

"No more than I steal 'em, sir," again spoke Thomas. "He's not capable, sir. It was Mr. Gerard."

The colonel was struck speechless: his rage vanished, and down he sat in a chair, staring at Thomas. Lady Sarah coloured with surprise. "Now, my man," cried the officer, "why could you not have said it was Mr. Gerard ?"

"Because Mr. Gerard asked me not to say he had been, sir; he is not friendly here, just now; and I promised him I would not. And I'm sorry to have had to break my word."

"Who is Mr. Gerard, pray:

y?"

"He is my nephew," interposed the checkmated colonel. "Gerard Hope."

"But, as Thomas says, he is no swindler," remarked Lady Sarah: "he is not the thief. You may go, Thomas."

"No, sir," stormed the colonel; "fetch Miss Seaton here first. I'll come to the bottom of this. If he has done it, Lady Sarah, I will bring him to trial; though he is Gerard Hope."

Alice came back, leaning on the arm of Lady Francis Chenevix; the latter having been dying with curiosity to come in before.

"So the mystery is out, ma'am," began the colonel to Miss Seaton: "it appears this gentleman was right, and that somebody did come in ; and that somebody the rebellious Mr. Gerard Hope."

Alice was prepared for this, for Thomas had told her Mr. Gerard's visit was known; and she was not so agitated as before. It was the fear of its being found out, the having to conceal it, which had troubled her. "It is not possible that Gerard can have taken the bracelet," uttered Lady Sarah.

"No, it is not possible," replied Alice. "And that is why I was unwilling to mention his having come up."

"What did he come for ?" thundered the colonel.

"It was not an intentional visit. I believe he only followed the impulse of the moment. He saw me at the front window, and Thomas, it appears, was at the door, and he ran up."

"I think you might have said so, Alice," observed Lady Sarah, in a stiff tone.

"Knowing he had been forbidden the house, I did not wish to bring him under the colonel's displeasure," was all the excuse Alice could offer. "It was not my place to inform against him."

"I presume he approached sufficiently near the bracelets to touch them, had he wished?" observed the officer, who of course had now made up his mind upon the business-and upon the thief.

"Yes," returned Alice, wishing she could have said No.

"Did you notice the bracelet there, after he was gone?"

"I cannot say I did. I followed him from the room when he left, and then I went into the front room, so that I had no opportunity of observing."

"The doubt is solved," was the mental comment of the detective officer.

The colonel, hot and hasty, sent several servants various ways in search of Gerard Hope, and he was speedily found and brought. A tall and powerful young man, very good-looking. "Take him into custody, officer,' command.

was the colonel's impetuous

"Hands off, Mr. Officer-if you are an officer," cried Gerard, in the first shock of the surprise, as he glanced at the gentlemanly appearance of the other, who wore plain clothes, " you shall not touch me, unless you can show legal authority. This is a shameful trick. Colonel-excuse me-but as I owe nothing to you, I do not see that you have any such

power over me."

The group would have made a fine study: especially Gerard, his head thrown back in defiance, and looking angrily at everybody.

"Did you hear me?" cried the colonel.

"I must do my duty," said the police-officer, approaching Gerard. "And for authority-you need not suppose I should act, if without it." "Allow me to understand first," remarked Gerard, haughtily eluding the officer. "Which is it for? What is the sum total ?" "Two hundred and fifty pounds," growled the colonel. "But if you are thinking to compromise it in that way, young sir, you will find yourself mistaken."

"Oh, no fear," retorted Gerard; "I have not two hundred and fifty pence. Let me see it must be Dobbs's. A hundred and sixty-how on earth do they slide the expenses up? I did it sir, to oblige a friend." "The deuce you did!" echoed the colonel, who but little understood the speech, except the last sentence. "If ever I saw such a cool villain

in all my experience!"

"He was awfully hard up," went on Gerard, " as bad as I am now; and I did it. I don't deny having done such things on my own account, but from this particular one I did not benefit a shilling."

His cool assurance, and his words, struck them with consternation. "Dobbs said he'd take care I should be put to no inconvenience-and this comes of it! That's trusting your friends. He vowed to me,

this very week, that he had provided for the bill."

"He thinks it is only an affair of debt!" screamed Lady Frances Chenevix. "Oh, Gerard! what a relief! we thought you were confessing."

"You are not arrested for debt, sir," cried the officer, "but for felony."

"For felony !" uttered Gerard Hope. "Oh, indeed! make it murder ?" he added, sarcastically.

Could you not

"Off with him to Marlborough-street, officer," cried the exasperated colonel, "and I'll come with you and prefer the charge. He scoffs at it,

does he ?"

"Yes, that I do," answered Gerard; "for whatever pitfalls I may have got into, in the way of debt and carelessness, I have not gone into crime."

"You are accused, sir," said the officer, "of stealing a diamond bracelet."