live and die in it; so look
out, you three women folks, and work as lively as you can on the inside
of the old rookery, or the slickness of the outside will put you to open
shame, and that would never please Loreen, nor, as I take it, Miss
Butterworth either."

It was a challenge we were glad to accept, especially as from the number
of persons we now saw come flocking into the lane, it was very apparent
that we should experience no further difficulty in obtaining any help we
might need to carry out our undertakings.

Meantime my thoughts were not altogether concentrated upon these
pleasing plans for Lucetta's benefit. There were certain points yet to
be made clear in the matter just terminated, and there was a confession
for me to make, without which I could not face Mr. Gryce with all that
unwavering composure which our peculiar relations seemed to demand.

The explanations came first. They were volunteered by Mr. Gryce, whom I
met in the course of the morning at Mother Jane's cottage. That old
crone had been perfectly happy all night, sleeping with the coin in her
hand and waking to again devour it with her greedy but loving eyes. As I
was alternately watching her and Mr. Gryce, who was directing with his
hand the movements of the men who had come to smooth down her garden and
make it presentable again, the detective spoke:

"I suppose you have found it difficult, in the light of these new
discoveries, to explain to yourself how Mother Jane happened to have
those trinkets from the peddler's pack, and also how the ring, which you
very naturally thought must have been entrusted to the dove by Mr.
Chittenden himself, came to be about its neck when it flew home that day
of Mr. Chittenden's disappearance. Madam, we think old Mother Jane must
have helped herself out of the peddler's pack before it was found in the
woods there back of her hut, and of the other matter our explanation is
this:

"One day a young man, equipped for travelling, paused for a glass of
water at the famous well in Mr. Trohm's garden just as Mother Jane's
pigeons were picking up the corn scattered for them by the former, whose
tastes are not confined to the cultivation of fruits and flowers, but
extend to dumb animals, to whom he is uniformly kind. The young man wore
a ring, and, being nervous, was fiddling with it as he talked to the
pleasant old gentleman who was lowering the bucket for him. As he
fiddled with it, the earth fell from under him,