things of the sort to which superstition attaches, they have been
'banked,' so to speak, by their successive owners in museums."

"Are they salable; that is, could any one dispose of the emeralds
or the other curios with reasonable safety and at a good price?"

"Oh, yes, yes," hastened Dr. Lith, "not as collections, but
separately. The emeralds alone cost fifty thousand dollars. I
believe Mr. Spencer bought them for Mrs. Spencer some years before
she died. She did not care to wear them, however, and had them
placed here."

I thought I noticed a shade of annoyance cross the face of the
magnate. "Never mind that," he interrupted. "Let me introduce Miss
White. I think you will find her story one of the most uncanny you
have ever heard."

He had placed a chair for her and, still addressing us but looking
at her, went on: "It seems that the morning the vandalism was
first discovered she and Dr. Lith at once began a thorough search
of the building to ascertain the extent of the depredations. The
search lasted all day, and well into the night. I believe it was
midnight before you finished?"

"It was almost twelve," began the girl, in a musical voice that
was too Parisian to harmonize with her plain Anglo-Saxon name,
"when Dr. Lith was down here in his office checking off the
objects in the catalogue which were either injured or missing. I
had been working in the library. The noise of something like a
shade flapping in the wind attracted my attention. I listened. It