oor. They had had
an idea that he might have disappeared for ever.

"Well?"

"Did you see anybody?"

Morland shook his head. He was dusting his sleeves, and trying to rub
the dirt off his hands.

"I didn't catch a burglar, but I've made a discovery," he said slowly.

"What?"

The girls were half-frightened, half-thrilled.

"I've been on the roof. Did you know the telephone wires run over the
school?"

"I never noticed."

"Well, they do. And what's more, they've been cut!"

"Great Scott!"

"Whoever did it has been very clever. It was a unique spot to get at
them, and impossible to be seen from the road."

"I must tell Uncle Barton _at once_!" gasped Lorraine breathlessly.
"It's exactly what he was wanting to find out!"

"We'd better ask Mrs. Jones if anybody has been hanging about the
place," suggested Claudia.

The charwoman, on being interviewed, assured them that nobody had been
to the school. There was only one key to the museum, so it could not
have been entered in their absence.

"Did you leave the window open?" asked Morland of Lorraine.

"I believe I did, just a little at the top."

"Well, don't you notice that the leads below the window communicate with
one of the bedroom windows of the school? Any one inside The Gables
could step out and get into the museum that way."

"But Mrs. Jones says nobody has been in the school, didn't you, Mrs.
Jones?"

"Yes, miss, no one but myself--except--yes, I do remember, one of the
teachers came and asked if she might fetch a book she'd forgotten, and I
let her go in."

"Which teacher was it?"

"That foreign lady."

"Madame Bertier?"

"I don't know her name. She wasn't there more than a few minutes."

"Oh!" said Lorraine thoughtfully. "Thank you, Mrs. Jones!"

Uncle Barton also looked thoughtful, when Lorraine described to him the
whole occurrence. He wrote a note at once to the Chief Constable, to
tell him where the telephone wires were cut, and sent the office boy to
deliver it. Then he asked for any details his niece could supply.

"You're a little brick!" he commented. "There's treachery at work
somewhere, undoubtedly, but the question is how to lay our hands on it.
Can I trust you and the Castletons just to keep this dark for the
present? I'd rather it wasn't noised all about the place. I've my own
ideas, and I want to work them out in my own way."

"Shall I say anything about it to Madame Bertier?" asked Lorraine.

"Most decidedly not