mly, "that this small matter of the murder
is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in the deuce of
a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, somebody ought to be
around to take her deposition. She knows a lot, if she didn't do it
herself. I wish you would go down to the telephone and get the hospital.
Find out her name, and if she is conscious."

McKnight went under protest. "I haven't much time," he said, looking at
his watch. "I'm to meet Mrs. West and Alison at one. I want you to know
them, Lollie. You would like the mother."

"Why not the daughter?" I inquired. I touched the little gold bag under
the pillow.

"Well," he said judicially, "you've always declared against the
immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women--"

"I never said anything of the sort," I retorted furiously.

"'There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!'" he
quoted me. "'More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for the eternal
matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a fox, some decent
hounds and a hunter, and I'll show you the real joys of the chase!'"

"For Heaven's sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head ache," I
said savagely.

I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look at
it. It was an imbecile thing to do--call it impulse, sentimentality,
what you wish. I brought it out, one eye on the door, for Mrs.
Klopton has a ready eye and a noiseless shoe. But the house was quiet.
Down-stairs McKnight was flirting with the telephone central and
there was an odor of boneset tea in the air. I think Mrs. Klopton was
fascinated out of her theories by the "boneset" in connection with the
fractured arm.

Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been
unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the snowfield
of the counterpane--some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a tiny booklet
with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance--and a necklace. I
drew myself up slowly and stared at the necklace.

It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, a
heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin neck
chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three places the
links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose and partly detached.
But it was the supporting chain that held my eye and fascinated with
its sinister suggestion. Three inches of it had been snapped off, and as
well as