The Diamond Pin

She was tempted to turn on the light, and look at the silk handkerchief still in her hand, but she feared her visitor might discover the fraud and return.

She crept softly into the living room, closed and locked the window through which she had heard him go, and wondered whether it had been left unfastened or he had forced the catch. But that could wait till morning. She locked the living-room door on the hall side, for further safety, and returned to her room, determined to have additional bolts and bars attached here and there the next day.

Then she remembered the house was not hers, and though she might suggest she could not dictate.

Hours she lay awake, thinking it all over. In the security of her own room, she felt no fear and the dawn had begun to show before she slept.

"He's a crazy man," she told herself, finally, just as, at last, slumber came to her. "But it's queer the same mania attacked two people at the same time."

Next day she told Lucille Darrel the story.

"No, I don't think he was crazy," Miss Darrel said, "I think he's an agent of that other man, and they wanted to find out if you had given the first man the right pin. You see, when you made the second man – what's his name, Ashton? – "

"Yes, and the first was Pollock."

"Well, when Pollock doubted that you'd given him the right pin, he sent Ashton to find out, and then when you were so clever as to fool Ashton so fully, he thought you had been frightened into it, at last."

"But what do they want the pin for?"

"Just as Pollock said; to add to a collection of such things. You know that dime and pin joke is in all the papers. Everybody knows about it."

"But why so desperately anxious to get the very one? If they did have another, nobody would ever be the wiser."

"Not unless you withheld the real one, and then gave it or sold it to somebody else later. That would make Pollock's pin a fraud. Now, he's sure he has the very pin."

"Well, of all rubbish! But, you're right. I suppose friend Ashton went to the gate post, and not finding it there, he hovered around the house hoping to get in and hunt for himself."

"Just that. And he did get in – I'm not sure he wouldn't have taken something more valuable than the pin, if you hadn't caught him."

"I don't know; he didn't seem at all like an ordinary thief. Now, I'm going to see if Polly knows anything about the real pin."

It was nearly time for the Sunday dinner, and Iris, going to the kitchen, found the old cook busy with her preparations.

"Oh, don't bother me 'bout that now, Miss Iris," Polly said; "I've gotter set this custard – "

"Behave yourself, Polly! It won't hurt your old custard to take one minute to answer my question. Did you take a pin out of the under side of Agnes' pincushion?"

"Come outside here," and the cook drew Iris out to the kitchen porch. "Now," she whispered, "don't you talk so free 'bout that pin. Yes, Miss Iris, I got it, and you kin be mighty glad. That's a vallyble pin, that is, and don't you fergit it!"

"Valuable, how? And where is it?"

"Well, you know, Mrs. Pell, she set great store by that pin. Many's the time, when she's been goin' to New York or somewhere, she's said to me, 'Polly, you keep this safe till I get home,' and she'd hand me that self-same pin. And would I guard it? Well, wouldn't I!"

"But why, why, Polly, did she set such store by it?"

"It was her Luck, Miss Iris – "

"Luck, fiddlesticks! Aunt Ursula wasn't a fool! If she'd kept that pin for luck, she'd have stuck it away and left it alone."

"Now, you know there's no telling what Mrs. Pell would do! Anybody else might have done this or that, but there's no use sayin' she would. She was a law unto herself. But, anyway, that pin's valuable, and it don't matter for what reason! So, I got it away from Agnes, who hasn't a mite of right to it, and saved it for you. Why, Miss Iris, didn't your aunt, time and again, say she was goin' to leave you a valuable pin? Her little joke was neither here nor there. She said she'd leave you a valuable pin – and she did!"

"You're crazy too, Polly. Well, give me the pin; let me see if I can discover its great value. Perhaps if I rub it a Slave of the Pin will appear, to grant my wishes!"

"Here it is, Miss Iris," and Polly drew a pin from her bodice, "but for the land's sake be careful of it! Do, now!"

"I will, honest, I will," and Iris smiled as she took the common pin from the trembling fingers of the old woman.

"Lemme keep it for you, Miss Iris, dear. Won't you?"

"Maybe I will, later, Polly. I'll enjoy my valuable possession awhile, myself, first."

Iris went around the lawn toward the side door of the house. As she went, she looked curiously at the pin and then stuck it carefully in her shirtwaist frill.

As she neared the side door, she noticed a small motor car standing there. It was empty, and even as she looked, someone came up stealthily behind her, threw a thick, dark cloth over her head, picked her up and lifted her into the little car, and drove rapidly away.

She tried to scream, but a hand was held tightly over her mouth, and try as she would she could make no sound. She felt the familiar curve as they drove through the gateway, and turned off on the road that led away from the village, and Iris realized she was being kidnapped.

CHAPTER X

FLOSSIE

When Iris failed to respond to the summons for dinner, Miss Darrel waited a few moments and then took her own place at the table.

"Go and find Miss Clyde," she said to Agnes; "I do wish people would be prompt at meals, especially when they're guests."

Lucille never allowed any one of her household to forget that she was now mistress of Pellbrook, and she longed for the time when the mystery would be cleared up and she might be left to the possession of her new home.

Being Sunday, it was a case of midday dinner, and, as Iris was usually prompt, Lucille was surprised at the length of time Agnes remained out of the room. At last she returned with the word that she could not find Miss Clyde anywhere in the house. "But," she added, "maybe she went away in the little car that was here a while ago."

"What little car?" demanded Lucille.

"I don't know whose it was, and I don't know that Miss Iris was in it, but I just caught sight of it as it whizzed through the gate."

"When?"

"About an hour ago. I didn't think much about it. I saw a man driving it, and I think there was a lady on the back seat – "

"Agnes, you're crazy! Miss Clyde wouldn't go out anywhere on Sunday morning without telling me. She didn't go to church?"

"Oh, no, ma'am, it was much too late for that."

"Well, that was some stranger's car. You didn't see Iris in it?"

"No, ma'am, I didn't."

However, as there was no Iris on the premises, Lucille Darrel concluded she had gone off on some sudden and unexpected errand – perhaps to see Winston Bannard.

So Miss Darrel ate her dinner alone, with no feeling of alarm, but a slight annoyance at the episode.