"Mrs. Stannard, somebody killed your husband. If not a common malefactor, who was bent on robbery, then it must have been one of Mr. Stannard's intimates. If that is so, Barry Stannard is no more above suspicion than Miss Vernon or yourself." "That's true enough. Well, go ahead, Mr. Roberts. Do all you can, but do get somewhere. You reason around in a circle, always coming back to the proposition that it must have been either Miss Vernon or myself." "That is where I stand at present," said Bobsy, very gravely, "but I shall try to get some new light on it all,--and soon." Joyce looked after him sadly as he took leave and went away, and as soon as he was gone she threw herself on a couch and cried piteously. The visit to the jeweller merely corroborated what Joyce had said that the gold heart was bought shortly before her marriage to Eric. The date was looked up and the purchase verified. So it seemed to tell nothing save that it was meant for a gift but never given. Probably, thought Roberts, it was owing to Eric's marriage that he concluded not to give a keepsake to a woman other than his bride. But, after all, mightn't Goldenheart be Joyce herself? No, for the letter found in the desk denied that. But that letter might have been written a long time ago. Not likely, for it stated that Joyce would not be unwilling to consider separation from her husband. That of course, pointed to the fact that Joyce loved another, doubtless Courtenay, but more than all it pointed to Natalie as Goldenheart. Well, it was not inconceivable that Eric Stannard, the gay Lothario, had called more than one woman Goldenheart. Yet had it been Natalie, would he not have said Goldenrod, especially as he had painted her in that guise? And so, as usual, Bobsy Roberts puzzled round in circles and came back to the old idea that it must be one of those two women, and could not by any possibility be any one else. And now, to prove it. He planned to delve deeply into the recent past of the two, and also into Eric's behaviour of late, and he felt he must get some hint or some clue to go upon. Then, too, there were the missing jewels. The emeralds had been returned to Joyce,--that is, she _said_ they had been returned. But the rest of the collection was still unfound. Bobsy didn't think they had been stolen or lost, but merely that Eric had hidden them so securely that they were unfindable. A queer procedure that. It would seem that he would have left some record of their hiding place. But he was a queer man,--careless in every way. And the jewels might be in a bank or Safe Deposit, or might be in some desk or drawer in the house. The whole business was unsatisfactory, nothing tangible to work on. An out and out robbery, now, one might track down. But a jewel disappearance that might be all right and proper, was an aggravating proposition.