"Colonel Wilkinson is a shameless screw," resumed the other; "everyone knows that he puts away half his pay monthly, that he never subscribes to anything—'poverty and a large family' his cry—and that poor Mrs. Wilkinson finds it almost impossible to get him to give her a twenty-rupee dress." "I think Mrs. Dawson might have asked her to her show; leaving one out is always so pointed." "But it was intended to be pointed. Mrs. Dawson was so afraid of having her gowns copied," pleaded her friend. "Not much to copy now, is there?" retorted Mrs. Rattray; "and is it not strange that they have no suspicions, and no clue?" "No, neither the one nor the other," rejoined Mrs. Jones, shaking her head solemnly. But Mrs. Jones was mistaken; there _was_ a clue had Mrs. Wilkinson's ayah suffered it to pass from her hands. For one whole morning the dirzee's scissors were nowhere to be found, and a dirzee, minus his scissors, is as a dragon without his horse. Kadir Bux called upon all his gods to witness that he had left them in his basket the previous day. Who, then, had taken them? At last, after much loud talk, and an exhaustive search, the scissors were discovered under a fashion book in the drawing-room, and, behold! there was a tiny scrap of lemon satin stuck fast between the blades. Then the ayah, who had unearthed them, looked Angel straight in the eyes, and cried, "O child of the devil!" But she put the tell-tale scrap into the cook-house fire,—and held her tongue. CHAPTER VIII THE PICNIC THE ruthless destruction of Mrs. Dawson's dresses supplied a subject for conversation, not merely in the station, but also in the "Burra Bazaar," where the most private concerns of the sahibs, and mem-sahibs, are openly debated and discussed. Speculation was active, but neither the station nor the bazaar could hazard the vaguest conjecture, or trace even the ghost of a clue. The devil theory was dismissed with the contempt which it deserved; the monkey suggestion was equally scorned, since the defamed ape was dead, having departed this life two days previous to the outrage, and thereby established an unimpeachable _alibi_. If not the monkey, who then? And echo cried, Who? all over the arid, torpid cantonment. There was no reply, and the destruction of Mrs. Dawson's Europe frocks, like one of the historical crimes that have baffled humanity, remains undiscovered until the present day.