Missing," and then it tells about all the clothes she had on, and the
gold locket she wore, and the colour of her hair, and all that; and then
in another piece of the paper you see, "Gold locket found," and then it
all comes out.'

We sent H. O. for the paper at once, but we could not make any of the
things fit in. The two best were about how some burglars broke into a
place in Holloway where they made preserved tongues and invalid
delicacies, and carried off a lot of them. And on another page there
was, 'Mysterious deaths in Holloway.'

Oswald thought there was something in it, and so did Albert's uncle when
we asked him, but the others thought not, so Oswald agreed to drop it.
Besides, Holloway is a long way off. All the time we were talking about
the paper Alice seemed to be thinking about something else, and when we
had done she said--

'I believe we might be detectives ourselves, but I should not like to
get anybody into trouble.'

'Not murderers or robbers?' Dicky asked.

'It wouldn't be murderers,' she said; 'but I _have_ noticed something
strange. Only I feel a little frightened. Let's ask Albert's uncle
first.'

Alice is a jolly sight too fond of asking grown-up people things. And we
all said it was tommyrot, and she was to tell us.

'Well, promise you won't do anything without me,' Alice said, and we