"Walter undertook to manage the business. He hired a rascally chauffeur of his acquaintance and commandeered a closed car from my own garage, figuring that the kidnapping would be an accomplished fact long before the machine could be wanted, while its absence would never arouse comment on a fete night. He then induced Miss Manwaring to consent to meet him in a conveniently secluded spot near the gates. I overheard something, enough to lead me to suspect there was something wrong afoot, and therefore persuaded Miss Manwaring to lend me this costume of hers and went to meet Walter in her stead. Before I guessed what was up a bag was thrown over my head, my hands and feet were bound, and I was lifted into the body of the car and driven away at such speed that Walter, who found out his mistake almost immediately, was unable to overtake me before I arrived at the spot chosen for Miss Manwaring's prison--a deserted shooting-lodge on the South Shore." "Meantime, when it was found that I had been kidnapped instead of the girl, and while Walter was going to fetch me and make what amends he could, Adele and Mr. Lyttleton lost their heads entirely. Adele rushed round looking for Miss Manwaring, and when finally she found her, endeavoured to induce her to run away on her own account. And Mr. Lyttleton (who, by the by, will be leaving with Adele and Walter in the morning) on his own behalf arranged to direct suspicion of the robbery to Miss Manwaring, induced Mr. Mason to exceed my instructions and open the envelopes in my absence, and led Mr. Mason to Miss Manwaring's room, where, to his own stupendous surprise, there was found hidden one of the rings that had been stolen." "What makes you think he was so much surprised?" Mr. Trego cut in, who had turned in his chair to eye Mr. Lyttleton in a most unpleasantly truculent fashion. "Because he didn't know it was there." "But somebody must have made the plant," Trego argued. "There's no question, I take it, of Miss Manwaring's innocence?" "None whatever!" Mrs. Gosnold affirmed. "Then why not Lyttleton as well as another?" "That," Mrs. Gosnold said slowly, indeed reluctantly, "brings me to the fact that no confession has been made, as I had hoped it might be. That is to say, the jewels have not been restored. I am sorry. I have done all I could to protect the thief." "You know--?" Trego inquired. "I saw the theft committed," said Mrs. Gosnold. "It was done not for gain, but for the sole purpose of securing Miss Manwaring's discharge--" A short, sharp cry interrupted her, and in the momentary silence of astonishment that followed Mercedes Pride shut her eyes, sighed gently, slipped from her chair, and subsided to the floor in a dead faint. CHAPTER XVIII BREAKING JAIL