"Well, for goodness' sake," rejoined Sally, "insure them to-day. I've just been cleaned out of everything I've got." "Cleaned out?" cried Daphne. "D'you mean to say you've been robbed?" "That's right," said Sally. "Peter and I got back this morning to find the Marats gone and the place stripped. Of course, the furniture belonging to the flat's there, but the only decent things were what I'd added, and those have vanished." "Not all the things you got from Planchet?" "Rather," said Sally. "Shawl and everything. Jolly, isn't it?" "What an awful shame!" cried Adèle. "But who's taken them? Not the Marats?" "Must be," said Mrs. Featherstone. She nodded over her shoulder. "I've just been to the police about it, but you know how hopeless they are." "If I can do anything," said Berry, "you know I'd only be too happy..." "Thanks awfully," was the reply, "but to tell you the truth, I don't see what there is to be done. As far as I can make out, they left before Christmas, so they've got a pretty good start." "I'm terribly sorry," said I. "Of course I never saw the goods, but, if they were anything like the things we bought, it's a cruel shame." Mrs. Featherstone laughed. "I do feel sore," she admitted. "The maddening part of it is, I meant to take the shawl home to show George, and then, in the rush at the last, I left it out." She turned to my sister. "And you know I trusted that couple implicitly." "I know you did." "The queer thing is, they seem to have suffered one solitary pang of remorse. Did I show you those Chinese mats I was so crazy about? Well, after they'd gone, I suppose, their hearts smote them, because they did the three up and sent them back." For a moment we looked at one another. Then-- "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Sally," said Daphne gently, "but you mustn't give the brutes that credit. We sent you the mats as a Christmas present." Sally knitted her brows. "They're not yours. We bought them from Planchet. Directly I saw them, I thought how beautifully they'd match yours, and we wanted you to have a set." Sally stared at her. "But I could have sworn-----" "I know," said Daphne. "It was because they were such a wonderful match that we----" "What else did he sell you?" A sudden thought came to me, and I turned to catch Berry by the arm.... As men in a film, he and I looked at one another with open mouths.... Sublimely unconscious. Daphne and Adèle were reciting the list of our treasures. Mrs. Featherstone heard them out solemnly. Then-- "And what," she said, "does Planchet look like?" It became Daphne's turn to stare. I moistened my lips. "Slight, dark, clean-shaven, large brown eyes, nervous manner, scar on the left temple--_or am I describing Marat?_" Sally spread out her hands. "To the life," she said simply. There was a dreadful silence. At length--