nd Jill's rooms all right?"

"Yes."

"Well, let them move along, any way. Then we shall all be together.
And now, if we've got any sense, we shall let this sympathetic crowd
straighten up everything--they're simply bursting for the word
'Go!'--and gather round the fire, which I see they've lighted, and talk
about something else."

This was sound advice.

A close acquaintance with crime--the feeling that a robber has handled
her personal effects, mauled her apparel, trodden her own sanctuary--is
bound to jangle a sensitive woman's nerves. The less the girls thought
upon the matter, the better for them....

Orders were given, a sofa was drawn towards the hearth, Jonah went to
seek some champagne, and I slipped on a coat and left the hotel for the
garage.

When I returned some twenty minutes later, Adele had discovered a piano
and was playing "Whispering," while the others were dancing with as
much freedom from care as they might have displayed at a night-club.

When I laid the scent on the table, the dance died, and Daphne, Adele,
and Jill crowded about me.

"One for each of you," I said. "With my love. But wait one moment."
I turned to Adele. "How did you tell the 'Red Violets' from the
others?"

"It's paper had a line----"

I pointed to the three parcels.

"So have they all," I said. "It depends on the way the light strikes
it. One moment you see it, and the next you can't."

My wife examined the packages in turn.

"You're perfectly right," she said. Then, "Good Heavens!" she cried.
"Perhaps I gave that woman the wrong one, after all."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't suppose she cared. What's in a name? They're each of them
worth four pounds."

"That's true," said Adele musingly. "Still...."

We opened them one by one.

The first was the Black Lily.

Then came the Grey Jasmine.

I ripped the paper off the third case and laid it upon the table.

With my fingers about the cardboard, I paused.

"And what," said I, "is the betting?"

"Blue Rose," cried Jill.

"Red Violets," said Adele.

I opened the case.

They were both wrong.

The tray contained no perfume at all.

Crammed into the form of a scent-bottle was a dirty huddle of
wash-leather.

I lifted it out between my finger and thumb.

The diamond and emerald necklace which lay beneath must have been worth
a quarter of a million.

* * * * *

"Yes," said the British Vice-Consul, some two