n't give it to me but he said I could
wear it. Of course I had heard about the disappearance of the jewels from
the auto, but somehow I didn't associate this token of Fanning's with it.

"It was not till a week ago that I learned the true state of affairs. I
overheard a conversation of Fanning's with my father in which he
threatened him with arrest if he, father, didn't give him some money
Fanning said he had hoarded up. I knew dad didn't have any and I asked
him after Fanning had gone to tell me all about it.

"He isn't such a bad man at bottom and when I pleaded with him he told me
the whole story. On the day of the jewel robbery, for it was a robbery,
Morgan and Giles----"

"Our butler and groom!" cried Jess.

"Yes. Well, they were taking a stroll in the fields and happened along
just as the car was wrecked. They knew from servants' gossip that you had
been to town to get the gems and when they saw you lying unconscious and
the wallet near at hand, the temptation was too much for them and they
stole it.

"They determined to hide it in some woods near my father's place; but as
they entered them Fanning Harding came along on his bicycle. He saw them
enter the woods and became suspicious. Leaning his bicycle against a tree
he followed them and saw them bury the gems under a tree which they
marked.

"He noted the tree, too, and then, without their seeing him he remounted
his motor-cycle and came on to see my father about that business of the
hoax aeroplane. He said he wanted to bluff you into selling the Butterfly
to him.

"Well, father agreed, for a fair sum of money, to help him, and we
started right into town. At that time I thought it was a good joke, and
we were both laughing as we came in sight of the scene of the accident."

"So that's what they were laughing at," thought Roy, recollecting how
mystified he had been when he saw them together.

"I don't know whether it was Fanning's manner or what," said Hester
resuming, "but my father began to suspect that he might know something
about the jewels, and one day he followed him into the woods when he went
to see if the jewels were still under the tree. Father made him own up
when he caught him red-handed like that, but in the meantime Morgan and
Giles also had arrived. Well, the four of them were all equally guilty,
so they agreed to stick together and say nothing till the excitement
about the loss had blown over. But Fanning in the meantime said that he
mu