ful glance at the hotel manager and the two detectives--"nobody
has made a single suggestion about finding them!"

Fullaway exchanged looks with the other men. Once more he assumed the
office of spokesman.

"Perhaps you have not told them precisely what it is they're to find," he
suggested. "What is it now, Mademoiselle? The Pinkie Pell necklace for
instance!"

The prima donna, who was already retreating through the door of the
bedroom on whose threshold she had been standing, flashed a scornful look
at her questioner over the point of her white shoulder.

"Pinkie Pell necklace!" she exclaimed. "Everything's gone! The whole lot!
Look at that--not so much as a ring left in it!"

She pointed a slender, quivering finger to a box which stood, lid thrown
open, on a table in the sitting-room, by which the detectives were
standing, open-mouthed, and obviously puzzled. Allerdyke, following the
pointing finger, noted that the box was a very ordinary-looking
affair--a tiny square chest of polished wood, fitted with a brass swing
handle. It might have held a small type-writing machine; it might have
been a medicine chest; it certainly did not look the sort of thing in
which one would carry priceless jewels. But Mademoiselle de Longarde was
speaking again.

"That's what I always carried my jewels in--in their cases," she said.
"And they were all in there when I left Christiania a few days ago, and
that box has never been out of my sight--so to speak--since. And when I
opened it here to-night, wanting the things, it was as empty as it is
now. And if I behave handsomely, and go with Weiss there, to fulfil this
engagement, it'll only be on condition that you stop here, Fullaway, and
do your level best to get me my jewels back. I've done all I can--I've
told the manager there, and I've told those two policemen, and not a man
of them seems able to suggest anything! Perhaps you can."

With that she disappeared and slammed the door of the bedroom, and the
six men, left in a bunch, looked at each other. Then one of the
detectives spoke, shaking his head and smiling grimly.

"It's all very well to say we suggest nothing," he said. "We want some
facts to go on first. Up to now, all the lady's done is to storm at us
and at everybody--she seems to think all Edinburgh's in a conspiracy to
rob her! We don't know any circumstances yet, except that she says she's
been robbed. Perhaps--"

"Wait a bit," interrupted Fullaway. "Let us get he