“I think I can do that, too, now that the time has come,” said the detective, smiling. He turned to Mrs. Remsen, who had drawn nearer to Nan, and was now holding her by the hand. “Madam,” he said, “I wish to ask you a few questions about the interior arrangements of your house; that is, about some of its ornamentations. Will you indulge me?” “Certainly, sir. What is it?” “Before I ask the questions, I wish to make a statement for all of you—and if you interrupt me, Jimmy, before I have done, I’ll put a gag in your mouth. Just for the present, I am running this show, as you may have noticed.” “Go ahead and run it, then. I’ll do my talking after you have exploded all your detective theories.” “The statement is this, Mrs. Remsen. During that scene in the summerhouse with this scoundrel on the floor, I suspected that he had concealed the jewels somewhere in the rooms of Miss Nightingale, because he openly threatened to accuse her of the theft. “This evening after dinner, I came to these rooms and examined them, hoping that I could find where he had concealed them; but I was unable to do that. I was not able to discover anything that suggested a possible hiding place, although I searched as thoroughly as I could do so, while I was here. When I went out, I encountered the real thief in the hall, waiting for me. “He ran away before I was able to stop him. He descended the stairs ahead of me; but a very few minutes later, he was missing from the rooms downstairs, and I suspected that he had returned here. I concluded, in fact, that when I saw him in the hall, as I went out of these rooms, he had not followed me there, and did not suspect that I was there, but had gone there on some errand of his own. “Now, madam, I have not been inside of these rooms since then, but nevertheless, in the short time that I have been here, I have discovered a certain change in the ornamentation of this particular room. I will ask you to look carefully about you, and to tell me if you perceive any change. Please do so. You, also, Nan.” Both women turned. Everybody else in the room, including the nonplused constable and his three men, did the same. Nan and Mrs. Remsen searched with care, using their eyes, but both of them presently shook their heads negatively. “I see no change, Mr. Carter,” said Mrs. Remsen. “And you, Nan, do you observe none?” asked Nick. “No,” she replied. “What do you mean, Mr. Carter?” He did not reply to her. He turned again to Mrs. Remsen. “Madam,” he said, “I have observed, since I have been a guest in your home, that you are evidently a collector of rare vases. Is that true?” “Oh, yes; it has always been a hobby with me. But what——” “In every room that I have entered, there are several, but in no case have I noticed two that are exactly alike. Will you tell me if you have two vases that are precisely alike, now in your possession?” “Why, yes, now that you speak of it, there are two. But——”