to me that Mrs. Branford was seen with the actor Jack Delarue last
night. I imagine they quarrelled, for she returned alone, much
agitated, in a taxi-cab. Any way you look at it, the clues are
promising - whether she needed money for Branford's speculations or
for the financing of that rake Delarue."

Maloney regarded Craig with the air of an expert who could afford
to patronise a good amateur - but after all an amateur. Kennedy
said nothing, and of course I took the cue.

"Yes," agreed Blake, "you see, our original hypothesis was a pretty
good one. Meanwhile, of course, the police are floundering around
in a bog of false scents."

"It would make our case a good deal stronger," remarked Kennedy
quietly, "if we could discover some of the stolen jewellery hidden
somewhere by Mrs. Branford herself." He said nothing of his own
unsuccessful search through the house, but continued: "What do you
suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them
somewhere before she got the yeggman to break the safe. She'd
hardly trust them in his hands. But she might have been foolish
enough for that. Of course it's another possibility that he really
got away with them. I doubt if she has them at Grattan Inn, or
even if she would personally put them in a safe deposit vault.
Perhaps Delarue figures in that end of it. We must let no stone
go unturned."

"That's right," meditated Maloney, apparently turning something
over in his mind as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some
evidence, even part of the jewels that she had hidden, it would