“Have you left this booth at all?” asked a quiet voice, that of the official whose business it was to investigate.

“I—­I merely walked over to the floral booth opposite, and exchanged a word with Miss Merrick, and the others there,” she explained.

The search was resumed, and Charlie Mershone sauntered over.

“What’s this, Di?  Lost the big pearls, I hear,” he said.

She took him aside and whispered something to him.  He nodded and returned at once to the flower booth, around which a crowd of searchers now gathered, much to the annoyance of Louise and her cousins.

“It’s all foolishness, you know,” said Uncle John, to the Major, confidentially.  “If the girl really dropped her pearls some one has picked them up, long ago.”

Young Mershone seemed searching the floral booth as earnestly as the others, and awkwardly knocked the Doulton vase from the shelf with his elbow.  It smashed to fragments and in the pool of water on the floor appeared the missing pearls.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, while all eyes turned curiously upon Louise, who served this side of the triangle.  The girl appeared turned to stone as she gazed down at the gems.  Mershone laughed disagreeably and picked up the recovered treasure, which Diana ran forward and seized.

“H-m-m!” said the detective, with a shrug; “this is a strange occurrence—­a very strange occurrence, indeed.  Miss Von Taer, do you wish—­”

“No!” exclaimed Diana, haughtily.  “I accuse no one.  It is enough that an accident has restored to me the heirloom.”

Stiffly she marched back to her own booth, and the crowd quietly dispersed, leaving only Arthur, Uncle John and the Major standing to support Louise and her astonished cousins.

“Why, confound it!” cried the little millionaire, with a red face, “does the jade mean to insinuate—­”

“Not at all, sor,” interrupted the Major, sternly; “her early education has been neglected, that’s all.”

“Come dear,” pleaded Arthur to Louise; “let us go home.”

“By no means!” announced Beth, positively; “let us stay where we belong.  Why, we’re not half sold out yet!”

CHAPTER X

MISLED

Arthur Weldon met Mershone at a club next afternoon.  “You low scoundrel!” he exclaimed.  “It was your trick to accuse Miss Merrick of a theft last night.”

“Was she accused?” enquired the other, blandly.  “I hadn’t heard, really.”

“You did it yourself!”

“Dear me!” said Mershone, deliberately lighting a cigarette.

“You or your precious cousin—­you’re both alike,” declared Arthur, bitterly.  “But you have given us wisdom, Mershone.  We’ll see you don’t trick us again.”

The young man stared at him, between puffs of smoke.

“It occurs to me, Weldon, that you’re becoming insolent.  It won’t do, my boy.  Unless you guard your tongue—­”