just setting out
for Scotland Yard on this very business. Let me present you to my
colleague, who is working up the case with me."

Our visitor, a tall handsome girl of twenty or thereabouts, returned my
bow and remarked with perfect self-possession, "My name is Gibson--Miss
Juliet Gibson. My business is of a very simple character and need not
detain you many minutes."

She seated herself in the chair that Thorndyke placed for her, and
continued in a brisk and business-like manner--

"I must tell you who I am in order to explain my visit to you. For the
last six years I have lived with Mr. and Mrs. Hornby, although I am no
relation to them. I first came to the house as a sort of companion to
Mrs. Hornby, though, as I was only fifteen at the time, I need hardly
say that my duties were not very onerous; in fact, I think Mrs. Hornby
took me because I was an orphan without the proper means of getting a
livelihood, and she had no children of her own.

"Three years ago I came into a little fortune which rendered me
independent; but I had been so happy with my kind friends that I asked
to be allowed to remain with them, and there I have been ever since in
the position of an adopted daughter. Naturally, I have seen a great deal
of their nephews, who spend a good part of their time at the house, and
I need not tell you that the horrible charge against Reuben has fallen
upon us like a thunderbolt. Now, what I have come to say to you is this:
I do not believe that Reuben stole those diamonds. It is entirely out of
character with all my previous experience of him. I am convinced that he
is innocent, and I am prepared to back my opinion."

"In what way?" asked Thorndyke.

"By supplying the sinews of war," replied Miss Gibson. "I understand
that legal advice and assistance involves considerable expense."

"I am afraid you are quite correctly informed," said Thorndyke.

"Well, Reuben's pecuniary resources are, I am sure, quite small, so it
is necessary for his friends to support him, and I want you to promise
me that nothing shall be left undone that might help to prove his
innocence if I make myself responsible for any costs that he is unable
to meet. I should prefer, of course, not to appear in the matter, if it
could be avoided."

"Your friendship is of an eminently practical kind, Miss Gibson," said
my colleague, with a smile. "As a matter of fact, the costs are no
affair of mine. If the occasion arose for the exercise o