o chanst of this car going another foot under its own
power--not until it's been a week 'r two in hospital. The only thing
for you to do 's to hoof it, like I said."

"That's dead right," averred the other man. He was standing beside the
body of the cab and now unlatched the door and held it open for her.
"You might as well get down, if you're in any great hurry, ma'm."

Eleanor rose, eyeing the man distrustfully. His accent wasn't that of
the kind of man who is accustomed to saying "ma'm." His back was toward
the nearest lamp post, his face in shadow. She gained no more than a dim
impression of a short, slender figure masked in a grey duster buttoned
to the throat, and, above it, a face rendered indefinite by a short,
pointed beard and a grey motor-cap pulled well down over the eyes....

But there was nothing to do but accept the situation. An accident was an
accident--unpleasant but irreparable. There was no alternative; she
could do nothing but adopt the chauffeur's suggestion. She stepped out,
turning back to get her bandbox.

"Beg pardon, ma'm. I'll get that for you."

The man by the door interposed an arm between Eleanor and the bandbox.

She said, "Oh no!" and attempted to push past his arm.

Immediately he caught her by the shoulder and thrust her away with
staggering violence. She reeled back half a dozen feet. Simultaneously
she heard the fellow say, sharply: "All right--go ahead!" and saw him
jump upon the step. On the instant, the cab shot away through the
shadows, the door swinging wide while Eleanor's assailant scrambled into
the body.

Before she could collect herself the car had disappeared round a curve
in the roadway.

Her natural impulse was to scream, to start a hue-and-cry: "Stop thief!"
But the strong element of common-sense in her make-up counselled her to
hold her tongue. In a trice she comprehended precisely the meaning of
the passage. Somebody else--somebody aside from herself, Staff and
Alison Landis--knew the secret of the bandbox and the smuggled necklace,
and with astonishing intuition had planned this trap to gain possession
of it. She was amazed to contemplate the penetrating powers of inference
and deduction, the cunning and resource which had not only in so short a
time fathomed the mystery of the vanished necklace, but had discovered
the exchange of bandboxes, had traced the right one to her hotel and
possession, had divined and taken advantage of her impulse to return the
pr