And so I told him how his pocket had been fingered as he had descended that ladder. He was furious. "Damned pickpocket!" he broke out. "I should have thought these sharks made enough out of their filthy premiums nowadays without putting their hands right _into_ your pockets!" "I didn't say he did that exactly." "It's the same thing. And anyway, how did he know? What made him think----?" "Perhaps he saw you pick it up. Could he have done that from down below?" "Might. I shouldn't have thought so though. Of course, I was flurried." "But you wouldn't have thought it in Esdaile's case either," I reminded him. "No, that beats me," he admitted. "And I wouldn't be _too_ virtuous about it, Monty. In any case you'd no business with the thing, you know." "Oh, stuff!" he scoffed. "It's you that's being virtuous." And, with that ring in my waistcoat pocket that I had picked up with no more justification than he had the pistol, he might have added that I was hypocritical too. VI To tell the truth, that ring was beginning to worry me a little. I don't mean my possession of it, since I had no intention of pawning it, and was prepared to hand it over to its rightful owner as soon as I felt that that course would not do more harm than good. My concern was about the severed relation of which it had been a symbol. I wondered whether I was not perhaps a little excessively delicate on Monty's behalf. If my eyes, wandering round his tidy room, had encountered a copy of the _Era_ or been given any other excuse for introducing Audrey Cunningham's name, I think that after all I should have risked it. But "When in doubt cut it out" is a safe motto, and I remained silent. I had had, however, an idea. Mrs. Cunningham might be "fed" with men, but it was not likely that she had broken off her engagement without saying something to Mollie Esdaile about it. What was the harm in writing to Mollie, not necessarily mentioning the ring, but asking for her version of whatever had happened? The more I thought of it the more I liked the idea. Match-making is rather out of my line, but I am not entirely indifferent to the happiness of my friends, and I had not forgotten poor Monty's anguished cry of "Dawdy! Dawdy!" the last time I had visited him in Jubilee Place. I do not call it match-making merely to inquire whether a possible obstacle may not be removed. If it was the Case's doing, the Case's solution ought to get matters right again. A little prematurely, perhaps, I was growing to the belief that the question was not whether the Case would settle itself, but how. Before I left him, which I did very shortly afterwards, I had determined to write to Mollie. I did so indeed that very night. I did not mention the ring. I simply gave her a faithful picture of the two Montys, the first one so distressing, and the second so enheartening, and asked her what about the other side of the affair.