"If you will examine the necklace, Sir Mawson, you will see that it has not come through this adventure uninjured; in short, that one of the two sections of its clasp is missing, and the link that once secured that section to the string of diamonds has parted in the middle. Perhaps a good deal which may have seemed to you sheer madness up to this point will be clearly explained when I tell you that when I lifted Lady Leake's negligée from that chair a while ago I found this thing clinging to the lace of the right sleeve." "Good heavens above! Look, Ada, look! The missing section of the clasp." "Exactly," concurred Cleek. "And when you think of where I found it I fancy it will not be very difficult to reason out how the necklace came to be where Jennifer picked it up. On your own evidence, Lady Leake, you hastily laid it down on your dressing-table, when the sight of the lint bandage recalled to your mind your promise to Miss Eastman, and from that moment it was never seen again. The natural inference then is so clear I think there can hardly be a doubt that when you reached over to pick up that bandage the lace of your sleeve caught on the clasp, became entangled, and that when you left the room you carried the Ladder of Light with you. The great weight of the necklace swinging free as you ran down the staircase would naturally tell upon that weak link, and no doubt when you leaned over the banister at the landing to call Jennifer, that was, so to speak, the last straw. The weak link snapped, the necklace dropped away, and the thick carpet entirely muffled the sound of its fall. As for the rest----" The loud jangling of the door bell cut in upon his words. He pulled out his watch and looked at it. "That will be the Ranee's _major domo_, I fancy, Sir Mawson," he observed, "and with your kind permission Mr. Narkom and I will be going. We have, as I have already told you, a little matter of importance still to attend to in the interest of the Yard, and although I haven't the slightest idea we shall be able to carry it to a satisfactory conclusion for a very long time--if ever--we had better be about it. Pardon? Reward, your ladyship? Oh, but I've had that: Sir Mawson has given me his promise to let that bonny boy have another chance. That was all I asked, remember. There's good stuff in him, but he stands at the crossroads, and face to face with one of life's great crises. Now is the time when he needs a friend. Now is the time for his father to _be_ a father; and opportunity counts for so much in the devil's gamble for souls. Get to him, daddy--get to him and stand by him--and you'll have given me the finest reward in the world." And here, making his adieus to Lady Leake, whose wet eyes followed him with something of reverence in them, and shaking heartily the hand Sir Mawson held out, he linked arms with Narkom, and together they passed out, leaving a great peace and a great joy behind them.