The Diamond Pin

Flossie was kind and delicately courteous.

"Not your underclothing, of course," she said. "I have reason to think you secreted the pin I want in your clothes, a few moments before you – before you left home, and I think it must be in your frock or petticoats. Or, perhaps, in your camisole."

She examined the dainty lingerie with scrutinizing care, and extracted every pin – of which she found several. Each one she carefully laid aside, and gravely offered Iris a new pin in its place.

Pretty sure, now, that her pin would not be found, Iris let herself be amused at the whole performance.

"Do you do this as a profession," she asked, "or are you an amateur?"

"Both," was the unsmiling answer. "Will you give me your word there are no more pins on you?"

"I will give you my word there is only this one, and you are welcome to it." Iris took a pin from a loop of ribbon that adorned her petticoat ruffle, "but I must ask for one to replace it. I'm a shockingly careless mortal, and I fully meant to sew that bow on, but I didn't."

Flossie stared at her hard, but Iris didn't quiver an eyelash of fear or apprehension, and the other allowed her to dress herself again.

"That is all," Flossie said, shortly, as once more Iris was in full costume. "We will go now."

They re-entered the car, which was still at the door, and started back the way they had come.

CHAPTER XI

GONE AGAIN!

"The murder mystery is bad enough," said Hughes, "but this disappearance of Miss Clyde is also alarming. There is deep deviltry going on, and since Winston Bannard is in custody it can't be assumed that he had any hand in the matter."

"Unless Iris is doing something for Win," suggested Miss Darrel.

"They may be working in collusion – " began Hughes, but Mr. Chapin interrupted. "Don't use such an expression! Working in collusion implies wrong-doing. If those two, or either of them, should be hunting the hidden jewels, they have a perfect right to do so. The jewels belong to them – if they can find them."

"Iris Clyde isn't on any jewel hunt," declared Hughes, when, at that very moment, in at the door came Iris herself.

Her hair was decidedly tumbled, and her pretty lingerie waist was rumpled, but otherwise she looked trim and tidy.

But angry! Her eyes blazed as she cried, "Oh, I am so glad you men are here! I've had such an experience! Mr. Hughes, you must look up the people who kidnapped me – kidnapped me, in broad daylight! At my own side door! It seems to me as incredible as it must seem to you!"

"There, there," said Lucille, trying to calm the excited girl, "have you had your dinner?"

"No, and I don't want any. Listen, everybody, while I tell you about it."

They listened, breathlessly and absorbedly, while Iris told every detail of her adventure.

"And then," she wound up, "after Flossie had searched me as thoroughly as a police matron might have done, she allowed me to put on my things again, and we came back just as we went. I mean, I was put into the car with her, it was a little coupé affair, you know, and the same man drove it. We had the shades up part of the time, but as we made a turn she pulled them down, and as we neared this house, she put the shawl over my head again. It was a nice, white, woolly shawl, and smelt faintly of violet. Well, when we got to the bend of the – road below here, they asked me to get out and walk the rest of the way. I did so, gladly enough! I was so relieved to see the house again, that I just ran to it. They scooted, of course, and that's all. Now, Mr. Hughes, catch 'em!"

"Not so easy, Miss Clyde. The thing was carefully planned, and carried out with equal care. Did they get the pin?"

"They did not! Now, Mr. Hughes – Mr. Chapin, that pin must have some value. What can it be? To say it's a lucky pin is silly, I think."

"But what else could be its value?" said Chapin, wonderingly. "Let me see it."

"I won't let anybody see it, unless we draw the blinds and lock the doors," said Iris, decidedly. "I tell you there is some value to this pin. Could it be made of radium, or something like that?"

"Let's see it," demanded Hughes.

"All right, I will," and Iris locked the doors herself, and drew down the window shades. Then, turning on an electric light, she turned up the hem of her white serge skirt, and began feeling for the pin. And she found it, though the point had come through the material. But the head held it in, and Iris easily extricated it.

"There!" she said, holding it up, "that is the 'valuable pin' Aunt Ursula bequeathed to me. What do you make of it?"

Hughes took it first, and looked at it curiously. "Just a common, ordinary pin," he said, "no radium about that."

"Did you ever see any radium?" asked Iris.

"No; but I've seen common pins all my life, and that's one."

"Of course it is;" and Lucille Darrel's positive statement rather settled the matter.

Mr. Chapin looked at it, but could see nothing unusual about it. It was not bright, like a new pin, yet it was not yellowed with age. It was merely a pin, and nothing more could be made of it.

"It's a blind," said Hughes, with conviction. "Those people, whoever they may be, pretend they're after this pin, but really they think you have a real diamond pin left you by your aunt, and they're after that."

"That might be," agreed Chapin. "Did the search indicate anything of the sort, Iris?"

"I can't say. If so, at least, that girl made a big bluff of hunting an ordinary pin. I tried to fool her. I had put a pin of hers in the frill of my blouse, and I kept looking toward it, but furtively, as if eluding her attention. She caught on, and she examined that frill in every plait! She found the pin I had put there, of course, and she took special care of it, though pretending it was of no particular importance. I put one, as if hidden, in my petticoat ruffle, too, and she fairly pounced on that, but she gave me a glance to see if I noticed her satisfaction! Oh, we played our parts, and it was diamond cut diamond, I can tell you. I couldn't help liking her; she's really a nice girl, and she must have been made, or hired, to do what she did. She made me take down my hair, and she brushed it herself, in hope of finding a pin in it! And I did think of hiding it there at first, but I thought it safer where I put it. You see, it couldn't lose out, and there was little likelihood of her thinking to feel in the hem of my skirt."

"Very well done; you're a heroine, Miss Clyde, indeed you are! But, I fear the end is not yet. When they find they haven't the right pin – "

"How can they possibly know?" exclaimed Miss Darrel. "How can they tell that they haven't?"

"They must be able to tell, because they were not satisfied with the pins Mr. Pollock took from here."

"Pollock!" cried Iris. "It wasn't Pollock who ran that car to-day."

"No, but it's his affair. He sent the little car for you – "

"How did he know I'd be out there and with the pin in my possession?"

"He's been on the watch, all day, likely. Oh, you don't know the cleverness of a really clever villain. But give me an idea which way you went."

"I have no idea. You see, all the time the shades were up the shawl was over my head, and when she took the shawl off I couldn't see out at all."

"You've no notion what road you traveled?"

"Not a bit, after we left this place. I think they made unnecessary turns, for the car turned around often."

"You see what clever rascals we have to deal with?" grumbled Hughes. "And you recognized no landmarks?"

"Not one."

"What was the house like?"