by."

"This," asked Hewitt, "was not in the room that Mrs. Heath had occupied, I
take it?"

"No; this was in another part of the building. Well, the brooch
went--taken, evidently, by some one in a deuce of a hurry, for, when Mrs.
Armitage got back to her room, there was the pin-cushion with a little
tear in it, where the brooch had been simply snatched off. But the curious
thing was that the ring--worth a dozen of the brooch--was left where it
had been put. Mrs. Armitage didn't remember whether or not she had locked
the door herself, although she found it locked when she returned; but my
niece, who was indoors all the time, went and tried it once--because she
remembered that a gas-fitter was at work on the landing near by--and found
it safely locked. The gas-fitter, whom we didn't know at the time, but who
since seems to be quite an honest fellow, was ready to swear that nobody
but my niece had been to the door while he was in sight of it--which was
almost all the time. As to the window, the sash-line had broken that very
morning, and Mrs. Armitage had propped open the bottom half about eight or
ten inches with a brush; and, when she returned, that brush, sash, and all
were exactly as she had left them. Now I scarcely need tell _you_ what an
awkward job it must have been for anybody to get noiselessly in at that
unsupported window; and how unlikely he would have been to replace it,
with the brush, exactly as he found it."

"Just so. I suppose the brooch, was really gone? I mean, there was no
chance of Mrs. Armitage having mislaid it?"

"Oh, none at all! There was a most careful search."