necklace, which she kept in a box in a locked trunk in her
bedroom. While she had owned the necklace for over a year
she had never worn it. One evening having guests for dinner
on the occasion of her wedding anniversary she decided to put
it on and wear it for the first time. That night she
replaced it in its box and enclosed this in another box,
which she locked and placed in her bureau drawer. This she
also locked. The following night she decided to replace the
necklace in the trunk. She accordingly unlocked the bureau
drawer, and also the larger box, which apparently was in
exactly the same condition as when she had put it away. But
the inner box was empty and the necklace had absolutely
disappeared. Now, no one had seen the necklace for a year,
and then only her husband, their servants, and two or three
old friends. No outsider could have known of its existence.
There was no evidence of the house or bureau having been
disturbed.

A New York detective agency was at once retained, which sent
one of its best men to the scene of the crime. He examined
the servants, heard the story, and reported that it must have
been an inside job--that there was no possibility of anything
else. But there was nothing to implicate any one of the
servants, and there seemed no hope of getting the necklace
back. Two or three days later the husband turned up at the
agency's office in New York, and after beating about the bush
for a while, remarked:

"I want to tell you something. You have got this job wrong.
There's one fact your man didn't understand. The truth is