* * * * *

We had intended to be home in time for tea.

As it was, we got back to White Ladies, pale and dejected, at a quarter to eight.

As she rose to get out of the car, Adele gave a cry and felt frantically about her neck and throat.

“What’s the matter?” I cried.

“My pearls,” she said simply.  “They’re not here.”

For what it was worth, I called for lights, and we took the cushions out and looked in the car.

But there was no sign of the necklace.  It was clean gone.

* * * * *

The lamentations with which the news of our misfortunes was received were loud and exceeding bitter.

Jill burst into tears; Daphne tried vainly to comfort her, and then followed her example; Berry and Jonah vied with each other in gloomy cross-examination of Adele and myself concerning our movements since we had left White Ladies, and in cheerless speculation with regard to the probable whereabouts of our respective treasures.

After a hurried meal the Rolls was again requisitioned, and all six of us proceeded to Fallow Hill.  Not until eleven o’clock would the fun of the fair be suspended, and it was better to be on the spot, even if for the second time we had to come empty away, than to spend the evening in the torment of inactivity.

Of the loss of the Sealyham we could speak more definitely than of that of the necklace.  Nobby had been by my side when the gipsy hailed us, so that there was no doubt but that he was lost at the fair.  Regarding her pearls, Adele could speak less positively.  In fact, to say that she had had the necklace before breakfast that morning was really as far as she could go.  “I know I had it then,” she affirmed, “because I always take it off before taking my bath, and I remember putting it on afterwards.  As luck will have it, I was rather late this morning, and I couldn’t fasten the safety-chain, so after two or three shots I gave up trying, intending to do it later on.  And this is the result.”  She had not bathed again.

It was a sweet pretty gaud.  So perfectly matched were its hundred and two pearls that many would have believed it unreal.  It had belonged to her great-grandmother, and was not insured.

Arrived at Fallow Hill, we went straight to the police.  The loss of the jewels we communicated to them alone.  Somewhat shamefacedly and plainly against Adele’s will, I described the old gipsy and commended her to their vigilance.  When they learned that she had laid hands upon Adele, the two inspectors exchanged glances which there was no mistaking....