yet he had done so without so much as removing the surface dust from
the paint.

"He had reached the ground as lightly as a fairy, without making any
mark upon the mould; the footprints were merely those of someone
approaching and walking from the pipe."

Glanedale drew a cigarette case from his pocket; opened it, took out
a cigarette, then, hesitating a moment, replaced it, and returned
the case to his pocket, his eyes all the time on Malcolm Sage.

"I think," continued Malcolm Sage, "we shall find that the burglar
has buried the jewel-case a few yards to the right of the pipe he is
supposed to have climbed." His forefinger touched a spot on the
extreme right of the table. "There are indications that the mould
has been disturbed. Incidentally a trowel is missing----"

Glanedale suddenly sprang to his feet, just as Lady Glanedale fell
forward in her chair--she had fainted.

II

"It's a very unpleasant business," remarked Mr. Goodge, the General
Manager of the Twentieth Century Insurance Company, as he looked up
from reading a paper that Malcolm Sage had just handed to him. In it
Lady Glanedale confessed the fraud she had sought to practise upon
the Corporation. "A very unpleasant business," he repeated.

Malcolm Sage gazed down at his finger-nails, as if the matter had no
further interest for him. When his brain was inactive, his hands
were at rest.

"I don't know what view the Board will take," continued Mr. Goodge,
as Malcolm Sage made no comment.

"They will probably present me with another walking-stick," he
remarked indifferently.

Mr. Goodge laughed. Malcolm Sage's walking-stick had been a standing
joke between them.

"What made you first suspect Lady Glanedale?" he enquired.

"She had omitted to rehearse the episode of the burglary, and
consequently when it came to reconstructing the incident, she failed
in a very important particular." Malcolm Sage paused.

"What was that?" enquired Mr. Goodge with interest, as he pushed a
box of cigars towards Malcolm Sage, who, however, shaking his head,
proceeded to fill his pipe.

"She had already told me that the key of the safe was always kept
beneath a pile of handkerchiefs in one of the drawers of her
dressing-table; yet when I asked her to go through exactly the same
movements and actions as when the burglar entered her room, she rose
direct from the bed and went to the safe. The dressing-table was at
the other end of the room, and to get to