monds, yards of pearl rope, necklaces of rubies of the most lustrous
color and of the size of pigeons' eggs, rings, brooches,
tiaras--everything in the way of jewelled ornament the soul of woman
could desire--all packed closely away in a tin box that I now remembered
Fiametta had brought with her in her hand the day of her arrival. And
now all these things were ours--Henriette's and mine--without our having
had to stir out-of-doors to get them. An hour later they were in the
safety-deposit vault of Mrs. A. J. Van Raffles in the sturdy cellars of
the Tiverton Trust Company, as secure against intrusion as though they
were locked in the heart of Gibraltar itself.

[Illustration: "HER SLIGHT LITTLE FIGURE CONVULSED WITH GRIEF"]

And Fiametta? Well--a week later she left Newport suddenly, her eyes red
with weeping and her slight little figure convulsed with grief. Her
favorite aunt had just died, she said, and she was going back to England
to bury her.

IV

THE PEARL ROPE OF MRS. GUSHINGTON-ANDREWS

"Bunny," said Henrietta one morning, shortly after we had come into
possession of the Gaster jewels, "how is your nerve? Are you ready for a
coup requiring a lot of it?"

"Well," I replied, pluming myself a bit, "I don't wish to boast,
Henriette, but I think it is pretty good. I managed to raise
twenty-seven hundred dollars on my own account by the use of it last
night."

"Indeed?" said Henriette, with a slight frown. "How, Bunny? You know you
are likely to complicate matters for all of us if you work on the side.
What, pray, did you do last night?"

And then I unfolded to her the incidents of the night before when, by
assuming at a moment's notice the position of valet to young Robertson
de Pelt, the frisky young favorite of the inner set, I had relieved that
high-flying young bachelor of fifteen hundred dollars in cash and some
twelve hundred dollars worth of jewels as well.

"I was spending the evening at the Gentlemen's Gentlemen's Club," I
explained, "when word came over the telephone to Digby, Mr. de Pelt's
valet, that Mr. de Pelt was at the Rockerbilts' and in no condition to
go home alone. It happened that it was I who took the message, and
observing that Digby was engaged in a game of billiards, and likely to
remain so for some time to come, I decided to go after the gentleman
myself without saying anything to Digby about it. Muffling myself up so
that no one could recognize me, I hired a cab and drove