't understand.

"Don't you see," I cried, "that if we come forward and say we saw him in
the Rue d'Hollande at a quarter past twelve--going into a house
there--he couldn't have murdered the man in that other house, far away.
It all hangs on the time."

"But you didn't see him go in," Lisa contradicted me.

I stared at her. "_You_ did. Isn't it the same thing?"

"No, not unless I choose to say so."

"And--but you will choose. You want to save him, of course."

"Why?"

"Because he's innocent. Because he's your friend."

"No man is the friend of any woman, if he's in love with another."

"Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter
except saving him?"

"I don't consider," she said, in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor
Dundas has behaved very well to--to our family. But I want you to
understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger--no doubt
it's real danger--in any such way as you propose, it's for _me_ to do
it, not you. He'll have to owe his gratitude to me. And there's
something else I can do for him, perhaps--I, and only I. A thing of
value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back
at any price--even the price of looking for it on a dead man's body.
Well, I think I know what that thing was--I think I have it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished at her and at her manner--and
her words.

"I'm not going to tell you what I mean. Only I'm sure of what I'm
saying--at least, that the thing _is_ valuable, worth risking a great
deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your
aunt were thinking about hats."

For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange
idea sprang into my mind:

"That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d'Hollande last night!"

It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to
this--there had been so many other things which seemed more important.

Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or
not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and
that she had wanted to tantalise me.

"I won't say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I
do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man
mixed up in the case--perhaps the real murderer. If I _do_ decide to
tell what I know and what I suspect, it won't be to you--unless for a
very particular reason--and it won't be yet awhile."

I'm afraid tha