While she was gazing in rapt admiration upon the blazing jewels, the messenger returned, accompanied by a policeman in plain clothes.

“Excuse me, Miss, I wish to speak to a customer,” said the jeweller, as he met the officer and silently took him up to the farther end of the shop to his desk, opened a little drawer and showed him the watch and the photographs.

Then they conferred together for a short time.  The jeweller told the policeman how the watch had fallen into his hands; but that the pretended owner, finding that he could not repair it while she waited, had refused to leave it, and insisted on taking it home with her.

“Give it to her.  Let her take it home.  She can then be followed and her residence ascertained.  I think, without doubt, that we have now got a certain clue to the perpetrators of the robbery and murder at Castle Lone.”

CHAPTER XIII.

A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SCOTT.

“Will ye gie me my watch or no?” exclaimed Rose, growing impatient of the whispered colloquy between the jeweller and the policeman in plain clothes, although she was quite unsuspicious of its subject.

“Here it is, madam,” said the jeweller, with the utmost politeness, as he came and placed the watch in her hand.

She attached it to her chain and then left the shop.

The policeman sauntered carelessly toward the door and kept his eye covertly upon her.

She got into a four-wheeled cab and drove off.

The policeman hailed a “Hansom,” sprang into it, and directed the driver to keep the first cab in sight and follow it to its destination.

Rose, as it was now late in the afternoon, and she was longing for her turbot, green-turtle soup, and roast pheasants and champagne, drove directly home.

Her housekeeper met her at the door with good news.

“A letter from the master, ma’am.  The postman brought it soon after you left home,” she said, putting another “drop” letter in the hand of her mistress.

“Is dinner ready?” inquired Rose, who was more interested in her meals than in her lover.

“Just ready, ma’am,” replied the housekeeper.

“Put it on the table directly, then,” said Rose, as she ran up stairs to her own room.

She threw herself into a chair and opened the letter to read it, at her ease.

It was without date and very short.  It only informed her that the writer was still detained by “circumstances beyond his control,” and enjoined her to wait patiently in her house on Westminster Road, until she should see him.

It was also without signature.

“And there’s nae money in it.  I dinna ken why he should write to me at a’, if he will send me nae money,” was the angry comment of Rose, as she impatiently threw the letter into the fire.