left the shop, and noticed that she went straight to the establishment of Messrs. Tackham and Gridray, the Drapers. Tackham and Gridray remembered the girl’s coming, and that they had sold her a hat--a red velvet hat, with a yellow feather in it, because she said she wanted one “fit for the wife of a lord.” Thereupon Messrs. Diggles and Breffit returned in triumph, and learned that Betsey Slocombe had appeared the previous Sunday in church in a marvellous hat, which exactly tallied with Messrs. Tackham and Gridray’s description. The appearance, in fact, of the young lady in question was so utterly absurd, that I myself saw lots of people burst out into fits of derisive laughter as she passed down the aisle. The detectives now had nothing to do but to get a warrant for Miss Betsey’s apprehension, which they effected within two hours of their return. The girl was terribly frightened, but, seeing how much the detectives knew, she acknowledged that she had had two of the missing diamonds in her possession, but declared that Cubleigh had put them into her hands, and that she had only disposed of them in accordance with his directions. The next thing was to test the truth of her accusation; and to this at length old Massenger consented, though with great reluctance, and only when _Madame_ positively insisted on its being done. The detectives effected their purpose in what you will agree with me in thinking an ingenious manner. To us--_i.e._, to “Young Guttles” and your humble servant--sitting grinding over our Tacitus, enters a respectable, middle-aged mechanic in shirt sleeves and a dirty apron, which had once been white (Diggles got up to his part to perfection), and begins to boggle over the lock of old Massenger’s writing-table. “Bother this ’ere lock!” cries Diggles, “it’s got ’ampered, so as no key o’ mine will open on it. I on’y wish my mate ’ad the job i’stead o’ I, for I’m more used to bell’anging than to locksmithing, I am. I won’er whether one o’ you two young gents ’as got a key as ’ud fit, and ’ud be so werry good as to lend ’un for a minnit?” Thus adjured, Cubleigh and I, with the innocence of sucking doves, handed over our bunches of keys to the pseudo-locksmith, who at once spots the false key amongst those belonging to Cubleigh. “Why, I’ve the right key arter all on t’other bunch,” cries Diggles; “what a softy I is, to be sure; but thanks to you, gents, all the same;” and, so saying, he opened the drawer with a flourish, banged it to again, returned our keys with a merry twinkle in his eyes, and left the room to report what he had discovered. “I believe that fellow’s a fool,” remarked Cubleigh, as the man went out; “did you notice his idiotic grin as he left the room?”