“I am sorry, Anne, since you are fond of him,” I said.  “But to me he is impossible—­intolerable.  My reasons are quite sufficient.”

“Kit is perfectly right, Anne,” Leila broke in.  “I tell you, there is something queer about him,” she added in a portentous whisper.

Anne stiffened.

“He is perfect,” she declared.  “Of good family, warm-hearted, courageous, handsome, clever—­what more do you ask?”

“Honesty,” said Leila hotly.  “That a man should be what he says he is.”

Anne and I both stared.

“It is your Mr. Harbison,” Leila went on, “who tried to escape from the house by putting a board across to the next roof!”

“I don’t believe it,” said Anne.  “You might bring me a picture of him, board in hand, and I wouldn’t believe it.”

“Don’t then,” Lollie said cruelly.  “Let him get away with your pearls; they are yours.  Only, as sure as anything, the man who tried to escape from the house had a reason for escaping, and the papers said a man in evening dress and light overcoat.  I found Mr. Harbison’s overcoat today lying in a heap in one of the maids’ rooms, and it was covered with brick dust all over the front.  A button had even been torn off.”

“Pooh!” Anne said, when she had recovered herself a little.  “There isn’t any reason, as far as that goes, why Flannigan shouldn’t have worn Tom’s overcoat, or—­any of the others,”

“Flannigan!” Leila said loftily.  “Why, his arms are like piano legs; he couldn’t get into it.  As for the others, there is only one person who would fit, or nearly fit, that overcoat, and that is Dallas, Anne.”

While Anne was choking down her wrath, Leila got up and darted out of the tent.  When she came back she was triumphant.

“Look,” she said, holding out her hand.  And on her palm lay a lightish brown button.  “I found it just where the paper said the board was thrown out, and it is from Mr. Harbison’s overcoat, without a doubt.”

Of course I should not have been surprised.  A man who would kiss a woman on a dark staircase—­a woman he had known only two days—­was capable of anything.

“Kit has only been a little keener than the rest of us,” Lollie said.  “She found him out yesterday.”

“Upon my word,” said Anne indignantly, preparing to go, “if I didn’t know you girls so well, I would think you were crazy.  And now, just to offset this, I can tell you something.  Flannigan told me this morning not to worry; that he has my pearl collar spotted, and that young ladies will have their jokes!”

Yes, as I said before, it was a cheerful, joy-producing situation.

I sat and thought it over after Anne’s parting shot, when Leila had flounced downstairs.  Things were closing in; I gave the situation twenty-four hours to develop.  At the end of that time Flannigan would accuse me openly of knowing where the pearls were; I would explain my silly remark to him and the mine would explode—­under Aunt Selina.