nder the blankets in the chest of drawers in the
attic," Heppie shouted at her. "If we'd washed blankets last week, as I
wanted to--"

"Shut up!" Miss Letitia said shortly, and Heppie's thin lips closed with
a snap. "Now then, Knox, what do you make of that?"

"If that's the nightgown she was wearing the night she disappeared, I
think it shows one thing very clearly, Miss Maitland. She was not
abducted, and she knew perfectly well what she was about. None of her
clothes was missing, and that threw us off the track; but look at this
new glove! She may have had new things to put on and left the old. The
map--well, she was going somewhere, with a definite purpose. When we
find out what took her away, we will find her."

"Humph!"

"She didn't go unexpectedly--that is, she was prepared for whatever it
was."

"I don't believe a word of it," the old lady burst out. "She didn't have
a secret; she was the kind that couldn't keep a secret. She wasn't
responsible, I tell you; she was extravagant. Look at that glove! And
she had three pairs half worn in her bureau."

"Miss Maitland," I asked suddenly, "did you ever hear of eleven
twenty-two?"

"Eleven twenty-two what?"

"Just the number, eleven twenty-two," I repeated. "Does it mean anything
to you? Has it any significance?"

"I should say it has," she retorted. "In the last ten years the Colored
Orphans' Home has cared for, fed, clothed, and pampered exactly eleven
hundred and twenty-two colored children, of every condition of shape and
misshape, brains and no brains."

"It has no other connection?"

"Eleven twenty-two? Twice eleven is twenty-two, if that's any help. No,
I can't think of anything. I loaned Allan Fleming a thousand dollars
once; I guess my mind was failing. It would be about eleven twenty-two
by this time."

Neither of which explanations sufficed for the little scrap found in
Miss Jane's room. What connection, if any, had it with her flight? Where
was she now. What was eleven twenty-two? And why did Miss Letitia deny
that she had lost the pearls, when I already knew that nine of the ten
had been sold, who had bought them, and approximately how much he had
paid?

CHAPTER XX

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS

I ate a light lunch at Bellwood, alone, with Bella to look after me in
the dining-room. She was very solicitous, and when she had brought my
tea, I thought she wanted to say something. She stood awkwardly near the
door, and watched me.

"You