"Only two," Mr. Samuelson replied. "We were ten, altogether," he went on, counting upon his fingers--"and a very nice little party too. First of all my wife and myself. Then Mr. and Mrs. Max Solomon--Solomon, the great fruiterers in Covent Garden, you know; man worth a quarter of a million of money and a distant connection of my wife--very distant, worse luck! Then there was Mr. Sidney Hollingworth, a young man in my office; but he doesn't count, because he stayed on chatting with me about business after the others had gone, and he was with us when the theft was discovered. Then there was my wife's widowed sister, Mrs. Rosenthal. We can leave her out. That's six. Then there was Alderman Sir Henry Dabbs and his wife. You may know the name--large portmanteau manufacturers in Spitalfields and certain to be Lord Mayor before long. His wife was wearing jewelry herself last night worth, I should say, from twenty to twenty-five thousand pounds; so my wife's little bit wouldn't do them much good, eh?" "It certainly doesn't seem like it," I admitted. "So far, your list of guests seems to have been entirely reputable." "The only two left," Mr. Samuelson concluded, "are an American gentleman and his daughter, a Mr. and Miss Parker whom we met on the train coming up from Brighton--a very delightful gentleman and most popular he was with all of us. The young lady, too, was perfectly charming. To hear him talk I should have put him down myself as a man worth all the money he needed, and more; and the young lady had got that trick of wearing her clothes and talking as though she were born a princess. Real style, I should have said--both of them. Still, the fact remains that they came in a motor car with two men-servants; that it waited for them; and that this detective from Scotland Yard--Mr. Cullen, I think his name is--has fairly got his knife into them." "And now," I remarked, smiling, "you are perhaps coming to the object of your visit to me?" "Exactly!" Mr. Samuelson admitted. "The fact of it is that in the course of conversation your name was mentioned. I forget exactly how it cropped up, but it did crop up. Mr. Parker, it seems, has the privilege of your acquaintance--at any rate he claims it. Now if his claim is a just one, and if you can tell me Mr. Parker is a friend of yours--why, that ends the matter, so far as I am concerned. I am not going to have my guests worried and annoyed by detectives for the sake of a handful of jewels. I thank goodness I can afford to lose them, if they must be lost, and I can replace them this afternoon without feeling it. Now you know where we are, Mr. Walmsley. You understand exactly why I have come to see you, eh?" I pressed another cigarette upon him and lit one myself.