rd. No jewelers'
or milliners' bills were among the papers found in her desk. Not a sign
of secret extravagance in dress was to be seen anywhere. Defeated so
far, the police proposed next to have Isabel privately watched. There
might be a prodigal lover somewhere in the background, with ruin staring
him in the face unless he could raise five hundred pounds. Lady Lydiard
(who had only consented to the search under stress of persuasive
argument from Mr. Troy) resented this ingenious idea as an insult. She
declared that if Isabel was watched the girl should know of it instantly
from her own lips. The police listened with perfect resignation and
decorum, and politely shifted their ground. A certain suspicion (they
remarked) always rested in cases of this sort on the servants. Would
her Ladyship object to private inquiries into the characters and
proceedings of the servants? Her Ladyship instantly objected, in the
most positive terms. Thereupon the "Inspector" asked for a minute's
private conversation with Mr. Troy. "The thief is certainly a member
of Lady Lydiard's household," this functionary remarked, in his
politely-positive way. "If her Ladyship persists in refusing to let us
make the necessary inquiries, our hands are tied, and the case comes
to an end through no fault of ours. If her Ladyship changes her mind,
perhaps you will drop me a line, sir, to that effect. Good-morning."

So the experiment of consulting the police came to an untimely end.
The one result obtained was the expression of purblind opinion by the
authorities of the detective department which pointed to Isabel, or to
one of the servants, as the undiscovered thief. Thinking the matter over
in the retirement of his own office--and not forgetting his promise to
Isabel to leave no means untried of establishing her innocence--Mr. Troy
could see but one alternative left to him. He took up his pen, and wrote
to his friend at the Government office. There was nothing for it now but
to run the risk, and try Old Sharon.

CHAPTER IX.

THE next day, Mr. Troy (taking Robert Moody with him as a valuable
witness) rang the bell at the mean and dirty lodging-house in which Old
Sharon received the clients who stood in need of his advice.

They were led up stairs to a back room on the second floor of the house.
Entering the room, they discovered through a thick cloud of tobacco
smoke, a small, fat, bald-headed, dirty, old man, in an arm-chair, robed
in a tatter