r mind. Regardless alike of my feelings and of the canons
of good taste, she rises at an hour which is almost blasphemous and goes
forth unreasonably to indulge in the most hellish form of exercise ever
invented. What further evidence do we need? By this time she has
probably detached the lamp from the velocipede and is walking about,
saying she's Florence Nightingale."

"Idiot," said Daphne.

"Not yet," said her husband, "but I can feel it coming on." He cast an
eye downward and shivered. "I feared as much. My left leg is all
unbuttoned."

"For goodness' sake," said his wife, "don't sit there drivelling----"

"Sorry," said Berry, "but I haven't got a clean bib left. This laundry
strike----"

"I said 'drivelling,' not 'dribbling.' You know I did. And what are we
wasting time for? Let's do something--anything."

"Right-oh," said her husband. "What about giving the bread some birds?"
And with that he picked up a loaf and deliberately pitched it out of the
window on to the terrace.

The fact that the casement was not open until after the cast, made his
behaviour the more outrageous.

The very wantonness of the act, however, had the excellent effect of
breaking the spell of melancholy under which we were labouring.

In a moment all was confusion.

Jill burst into shrieks of laughter; Jonah, who had been immersed in
_The Times_, cursed his cousin for the shock to his nerves; in a shaking
voice Daphne assured the butler, whom the crash had brought running,
that it was "All right, Falcon; Major Pleydell thought the window was
open"; and the delinquent himself was loudly clamouring to be told
whether he had won the slop-pail outright or had only got to keep it
clean for one year.

Twenty minutes later Jonah had left for Brooch to see the Chief
Constable about the missing jewels and arrange for the printing and
distribution of an advertisement for Nobby. The rest of us, doing our
utmost to garnish a forlorn hope with the seasoning of expectation, made
diligent search for the necklace about the terrace, gardens and
tennis-lawn. After a fruitless two hours we repaired to the house, where
we probed the depths of sofas and chairs, emptied umbrella-stands,
settles, flower-bowls and every other receptacle over which our guest
might have leaned, and finally thrust an electric torch into the bowels
of the piano and subjected that instrument to a thorough examination.

At length--

"I give it up," said Daphne, sinking in