"These are my studs," quickly exclaimed Miss Deveen, before she had given more than a glance. "You can look yourself for the private marks I told you about, Mr. Bond." Three brilliant emeralds, that seemed to light up the room, connected together by a fine chain of gold. At either end, the chain was finished off by a small square plate of thin gold, on one of which was an engraved crest, on the other Miss Deveen's initials. In shape the emeralds looked like buttons more than studs. "I never knew they were linked together, Miss Deveen," I exclaimed in surprise. "Did you not, Johnny?" Never. I had always pictured them as three loose studs. Mr. Bond, who no doubt had the marks by heart before he brought them up, began shutting them into the box as he had the others. "Anticipating from the first that the studs would most probably be found at a pawnbroker's, if found at all, I ventured to speak to you then of a difficulty that might attend the finding," said he to Miss Deveen. "Unless a thing can be legally proved to have been stolen, a pawnbroker cannot be forced to give it up. And I am under an engagement to return these studs to the pawnbroker, whence I have brought them, in the course of the morning." "You may do so," said Miss Deveen. "I dare say he and I can come to an amicable arrangement in regard to giving them up later. My object has been to discover who stole them, not to bring trouble or loss upon pawnbrokers. How did you discover them, Mr. Bond?" "In a rather singular manner. Last evening, in making my way to Regent Street to a place I had to go to on business, I saw a young woman turn out of a pawnbroker's shop. The shutters were put up, but the doors were open. Her face struck me as being familiar; and I remembered her as Lady Whitney's housemaid--the one who had been ill in bed, or pretended to be, the night the studs were lost. Ah, ah, I thought, some discovery may be looming up here. I have some acquaintance with the proprietor of the shop; a very respectable man, who has become rich by dint of hard, honest work, and is a jeweller now as well as a pawnbroker. My own business could wait, and I went in and found him busy with accounts in his private room. He thought at first I had only called in to see him in passing. I gave him no particulars; but said I fancied a person in whom I was professionally interested, had just been leaving some emerald studs in his shop." "What is the pawnbroker's name?" interrupted Miss Deveen.