our face tells me so."

"Has Ivor's message--to do with that?" I almost gasped.

"Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want
news--if you want the document, it must be through me."

"Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you
can get it for me, I will do," I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone.

"I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a
little after midnight until after one. Will you do that?"

"I must," I said, "if you have the document to sell, and are determined
to sell it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my
life, for it will kill my lover's love, when he knows I have lied to
him. Still, it will save him from--" I stopped, and bit my lip. "Will
you give me the diamonds, too?" I asked, humbly enough now.

"The diamonds?" She looked bewildered.

"The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they _are_ still in the
bag?"

"Yes, they are--they will be in the bag," the girl answered, her
charming mouth suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. "You
shall have the diamonds, and the document, too, for that one promise."

"How is it possible that you can give me the document?" I asked, half
suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured
because of it seemed too good to be true; that it should come through
this girl seemed incredible.

"Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it," she said simply. "That was
why I couldn't come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn't
quite know how I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or
advise me; and Ivor said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the
balcony of the room where the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn't be
allowed to get into the room itself, so it seemed difficult. But I
thought it all out, and hired a room for the evening in a house next
door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had to wait until after
dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the other. It wasn't
as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because it was so
high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I
couldn't fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing--except the
climbing back. I don't know how the document came in the box, though I
suppose Ivor put it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up
in a towel; and it's quite clean."

"I think," I said slowly, when she had finish