rly explained when I tell you
that when I lifted Lady Leake's negligee from that chair a while
ago I found this thing clinging to the lace of the right sleeve."

"Good heavens above! Look, Ada, look! The missing section of the
clasp."

"Exactly," concurred Cleek. "And when you think of where I found it I
fancy it will not be very difficult to reason out how the necklace
came to be where Jennifer picked it up. On your own evidence,
Lady Leake, you hastily laid it down on your dressing-table, when
the sight of the lint bandage recalled to your mind your promise to
Miss Eastman, and from that moment it was never seen again. The
natural inference then is so clear I think there can hardly be a
doubt that when you reached over to pick up that bandage the lace
of your sleeve caught on the clasp, became entangled, and that when
you left the room you carried the Ladder of Light with you. The
great weight of the necklace swinging free as you ran down the
staircase would naturally tell upon that weak link, and no doubt
when you leaned over the banister at the landing to call Jennifer,
that was, so to speak, the last straw. The weak link snapped, the
necklace dropped away, and the thick carpet entirely muffled the
sound of its fall. As for the rest----"

The loud jangling of the door bell cut in upon his words. He pulled
out his watch and looked at it.

"That will be the Ranee's _major domo_, I fancy, Sir Mawson," he
observed, "and with your kind permission Mr. Narkom and I will be
going. We have, as I have already told you, a little matter of
importance still to attend to in the interest of the Yard, and
although I haven't the slightest idea we shall be able to carry it
to a satisfactory conclusion for a very long time--if ever--we had
better be about it. Pardon? Reward, your ladyship? Oh, but I've had
that: Sir Mawson has given me his promise to let that bonny boy have
another chance. That was all I asked, remember. There's good stuff
in him, but he stands at the crossroads, and face to face with one
of life's great crises. Now is the time when he needs a friend.
Now is the time for his father to _be_ a father; and opportunity
counts for so much in the devil's gamble for souls. Get to him,
daddy--get to him and stand by him--and you'll have given me the
finest reward in the world."

And here, making his adieus to Lady Leake, whose wet eyes followed
him with something of reverence in them, and shaking heartily the
hand Sir