Nobody

"I don't know anything about it. I tell you I never saw it before."

The detective grinned incredulously. "Not even on Mrs. Gosnold's finger?"

"No-never anywhere."

"Mrs. Gosnold seldom wears the ring." Mrs. Standish put in; "but it is none the less hers."

"Well, where's the rest of the stuff'?" Mason insisted.

"I don't know. I tell you, I know nothing about that ring. I have no idea how it got where you found it. Somebody must have put it there." Sally caught her distracted head between her hands and tried her best to compose herself. But it was useless; the evidence was too frightfully clear against her; hysteria threatened.

"Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings," she stammered wildly, "rolled up as you found them. Ask her."

"Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!" Mrs. Standish told her coldly. "If you are possibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it. If you are guilty, you may as well confess and not strain our patience any longer. But don't try to drag me into the affair; I won't have it."

"I guess there isn't much question of innocence or guilt," Mason commented. "Here's evidence enough. It only remains to locate the rest of the loot. It'll be easier for you," he addressed Sally directly, "if you own up-come through with a straight story and save Mrs. Gosnold trouble and expense."

He paused encouragingly, but Sally shook her head.

"I can't tell you anything," she protested. "I don't know anything. It's some horrible mistake. Or else-it's a plant to throw suspicion on me and divert it from the real thief."

"Plant?" Miss Pride queried with a specious air of bewilderment.

"Thieves' jargon-manufactured evidence," Lyttleton explained.

"Ah, yes," said the old maid with a nod of satisfaction.

"If it's a plant, it's up to you to show us," Mason came back. "If it isn't, you may as well lead us to the rest of it quick."

"You've looked everywhere, I presume?" Lyttleton inquired casually.

"Everywhere I can think of in this room and the bath-room," the detective averred; "and I'm a pretty good little looker. That's my business, of course. I'm willing to swear there's no more jewelry concealed anywhere hereabouts."

"Unless, perhaps, she's got it on her person."

"That might be, of course," Mason allowed, eying the girl critically. "But somehow I don't think so. If she had, why would she have left this one piece buried here? No; you'll find she's hidden the rest of the stuff somewhere-about the house or grounds, maybe-or passed it on to a confederate, the guy you saw her talking to last night, as like as not and held out this ring to make sure of her bit when it comes to a split-up."

"Still," Lyttleton persisted, "ought you to take any chances?"

"Well." The detective shuffled with embarrassment. "Of course," he said with brilliant inspiration, "if these ladies will undertake the job."

Miss Pride stirred smartly. "It's not what I want to do," she insisted, "but if you insist, and on dear Abigail's account."

With a tremendous effort Sally whipped her faculties together and temporarily reasserted the normal outward aspect of her forceful self.

"I will not be searched," she said with determination. "With Mrs. Gosnold present-yes, anything. Find her, and I'll submit to any indignity you can think of. But if Mrs. Standish and Miss Pride think I will permit them to search me in her absence."

She laughed shortly. "They'd better not try it-that's all!" and on this vague threat turned away and threw herself back into the chair.

"I'm sure," Miss Pride agreed, "I'd much rather not, for my part. And dear Abigail is so peculiar. Perhaps it would be best to wait till she gets back."

"Or hunt her up," Lyttleton amended.

"I guess you're right," Mason agreed, a trace dubiously.

"But what will you do with the girl in the meantime? Take her to jail?"

"No; I guess not yet-not until we see what Mrs. Gosnold thinks, anyway. She ought to be safe enough here. That door locks; we'll take the key. She can't get out of the window without risking her neck-and if she did make a getaway uninjured, she can't leave the Island before morning. Let's move along, as you say, and see if we can't find Mrs. Gosnold."

Skirts rustled behind Sally's sullen back and feet shuffled. Then the door closed softly and she heard the key rattle in the lock.

She sat moveless, stunned, aghast.

Strangely, she did not weep; her spirit was bruised beyond the consolation of tears.

The wall upon which her vacant vision focused was not more blankly white than her despair was blankly black. She was utterly bereft of hope; no ray penetrated that bleak darkness which circumscribed her understanding.

Now the last frail prop had been knocked from under her precarious foothold in the faith and favour of Mrs. Gosnold.

As to the identity of the enemy who had done this thing Sally entertained not a shadow of doubt, though lacking this proof she could not have believed she owned one so vindictive, ruthless and fiendishly ingenious.

But after what had happened it seemed most indisputable that Lyttleton, not content with avenging his overnight discomfiture by an unscrupulous lie, had deliberately plotted and planted this additional false evidence against the girl to the end that she might beat out her life against the stone walls of a penitentiary.

For who would not believe his word against hers? Lyttleton had stolen the jewels: what else had he carried so stealthily down to the beach? What else had those signals meant but that they had been left there in a prearranged spot? For what else had the boat put in from the yacht to the beach? As for the window of the signals, it might well have been Lyttleton's, which adjoined the row of three which Sally had settled upon; and she had delayed so long after seeing him disappear on the beach that he must have had ample time to return to his room, flash the electric lights, and come out again to trap the one he knew had been watching him.

And if he hadn't stolen the jewels, what else was that "private matter" which he had been so anxious to keep quiet that he was resigned to purchase Sally's silence even at the cost of making love to her? And if not he, who had been the thief whose identity Mrs. Gosnold was so anxious to conceal that she had invented her silly scheme for extracting an anonymous confession? – her statement to the contrary notwithstanding that Lyttleton had not stolen the jewels and that she knew positively who had! The man was a favourite of Mrs. Gosnold's; she had proved it too often by open indulgence of his nonsense. He amused her. And it seemed that in this milieu the virtue of being amusing outweighed all vices.

Why else had Mrs. Gosnold refused to listen to the story Sally was so anxious to tell her about her precious Don Lyttleton? She must have known, then, that Sally was under suspicion. Miss Pride had known it, or she would not have found the courage to accuse the girl under the guise of fortune-telling; and what Mercedes knew her dear Abigail unfailingly was made a party to. And knowing all this, still she had sought to protect the man at the girl's expense.

And all the while pretending to favour and protect the latter!

Now, doubtless, the truth of the matter would never come out.

In panic terror Sally envisaged the barred window of the spinster's prophecy.

To this, then, had discontent with her lowly lot in life brought her, to the threshold of a felon's cell.

Surely she was well paid out for her foolishness..

After some time she found that she had left her chair and was ranging wildly to and fro between the door and window. She halted, and the mirror of her dressing-table mocked her with the counterfeit presentment of herself, pallid and distraught in all the petty prettiness of her borrowed finery.

In a sudden seizure of passion she fairly tore the frock from her body, wrecking it beyond repair.

Then, calmed somewhat by reaction from this transport, she reflected that presently they would be coming to drag her off to jail, and she must be dressed and ready.

Turning to her wardrobe, she selected its soberest garments-the blue serge tailleur advised by Mrs. Standish-and donned them.

This done, she packed a hand-bag with a few necessities, sat down, and waited.