e dusty pictures, with
Jimmy expostulating every time he moved anything and the rest standing
around watching him.

Max was strutting.

"We get it by elimination," he said importantly. "The pearls being
nowhere else in the house, they must be here in the studio. Three parts
of the studio having yielded nothing, they must be in the fourth. Ladies
and gentlemen, let me have your attention for one moment. I tap this
canvas with my wand--there is nothing up my sleeve. Then I prepare
to move the canvas--so. And I put my hand in the pocket of this
disreputable velvet coat, so. Behold!"

Then he gave a low exclamation and looked at something he held in his
hand. Every one stepped forward, and on his palm was the small diamond
clasp from Anne's collar!

Jimmy was apoplectic. He tried to smile, but no one else did.

"Well, I'll be flabbergasted!" he said. "I say, you people, you don't
think for a minute that I put that thing there? Why, I haven't worn that
coat for a month. It's--it's a trick of yours, Max."

But Max shook his head; he looked stupefied, and stood gazing from the
clasp to the pocket of the old painting coat. Betty dropped on a folding
stool, that promptly collapsed with her and created a welcome diversion,
while Anne pounced on the clasp greedily, with a little cry.

"We will find it all now," she said excitedly. "Did you look in the
other pockets, Max?"

Then, for the first time, I was conscious of an air of constraint among
the men. Dallas was whistling softly, and Mr. Harbison, having
rescued Betty, was standing silent and aloof, watching the scene
with non-committal eyes. It was Max who spoke first, after a hurried
inventory of the other pockets.

"Nothing else," he said constrainedly. "I'll move the rest of the
canvases."

But Jim interfered, to every one's surprise.

"I wouldn't, if I were you, Max. There's nothing back there. I had 'em
out yesterday." He was quite pale.

"Nonsense!" Max said gruffly. "If it's a practical joke, Jim, why don't
you fess up? Anne has worried enough."

"The pearls are not there, I tell you," Jim began. Although the studio
was cold, there were little fine beads of moisture on his face. "I must
ask you not to move those pictures." And then Aunt Selina came to the
rescue; she stalked over and stood with her back against the stack of
canvases.

"As far as I can understand this," she declaimed, "you gentlemen are
trying to intimate that James knows something of th