"
said Vera, "but, then, I often do things that I oughtn't to do."

"I should be the last person to suggest that you should do anything that
you ought not to do to--" began Mrs. Bebberly Cumble impressively.

"And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me," admitted
Vera, "so I'll do what I ought not to do and tell you."

Mrs. Bebberley Cumble thrust a very pardonable sense of exasperation into
the background of her mind and demanded impatiently:

"What is there in Betsy Mullen's cottage that you are making such a fuss
about?"

"It's hardly fair to say that _I've_ made a fuss about it," said Vera;
"this is the first time I've mentioned the matter, but there's been no
end of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it. It's
rather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and the
police and detectives hunting about everywhere at home and abroad, and
all the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret."

"You don't mean to say it's the Louvre picture, La Something or other,
the woman with the smile, that disappeared about two years ago?"
exclaimed the aunt with rising excitement.

"Oh no, not that," said Vera, "but something quite as important and just
as mysterious--if anything, rather more scandalous."

"Not the Dublin--?"

Vera nodded.

"The whole jolly lot of them."

"In Betsy's cottage? Incredible!"

"Of course Betsy hasn't an idea as to what they are," said Vera; "she
just knows that they are something valuable and that she must keep quiet
about them. I found out quite by accident what they were and how they
came to be there. You see, the people who had them were at their wits'
end to know where to stow them away for safe keeping, and some one who
was motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of the
cottage and thought it would be just the thing. Mrs. Lamper arranged the
matter with Betsy and smuggled the things in."

"Mrs. Lamper?"

"Yes; she does a lot of district visiting, you know."

"I am quite aware that she takes soup and flannel and improving
literature to the poorer cottagers," said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble, "but that
is hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and she
must have known something about their history; anyone who reads the
papers, even casually, must have been aware of the theft, and I should
think the things were not hard to recognise. Mrs. Lamper has always had
the reputati