f you know anything, I implore you
to speak."

"Not here," Chris said, firmly. "Stone walls have ears. I tell you the
Rembrandt was stolen just before Dr. Bell reached the house. Also I tell
you it is imperative that nobody but ourselves must know the fact for the
present. You trust me, Lord Littimer?"

"I trust you as implicitly as I do anybody."

Chris smiled at the diplomatic response. She approached the panel of the
wall on which the Rembrandt had been fastened. She indicated the long
steel stays which had been clamped on to the iron frame. "Look at them,"
she said. "It was my suggestion that the stays should be attached to the
frame to prevent anything like this robbery. I made the stays secure
myself. And what happened to justify my prudence? Why, the very same
night somebody came here after the picture."

"Henson!" Littimer cried. "Ah! But he could have come openly."

"It is not in the nature of the man to do things openly," Chris went on.
"I know more about the man than you imagine, but that you are to keep to
yourself. He comes here in the dead of the night and he gets into the
house through an upstair window. A man of his bulk, if you please! And
he comes here hot-foot and breathless at a time when common prudence
should have kept him in bed. Why? Because he knows that Dr. Bell has the
other Rembrandt and will come to prove it, and because he knows that if
he can steal the Littimer Rembrandt he can precipitate the very impasse
that he has brought about. But he could not steal the picture because it
was fast."

"You are a very clever young lady," Littimer said, drily. "You will tell
me next that you expected Henson to try this thing on."

"I did," Chris said, coolly. "I had a telegram to warn me so."

Littimer smiled. All this mystery and cleverness was after his own heart.
He lighted his cigarette and tendered his case in the friendliest
possible manner to Bell.

"Go on," he said, "I am deeply interested."

"I prefer not to go into details," Chris resumed. "All I ask you to do is
to be entirely guided by me when you have heard my story. I have admitted
to you that I knew when Henson was coming, and why am I interested?
Because it happens that Reginald Henson has greatly injured someone I
cared for deeply. Well, I fastened up the picture--he came. He sneaked in
like the thief that he was because his accomplice and tool had failed to
save him the trouble. Lord Littimer, I will not pain you by saying w