Lady Charvington was not at all grateful. "You are always making a fuss over the jewels," she said impatiently. "I have left the case in my bedroom for years and I have never lost a single thing." "That doesn't say you might not lose the lot," snapped Charvington, who found his wife trying even to his kindly nature. "There's time enough to talk when I do lose them." "Then it will be too late. I ask you to put them away every night in the strong-room. Bertha can take the case there, when she has dressed you for dinner." "Very well," said Lady Charvington, who was impatient to return to a very interesting book she was reading. "I'll tell Bertha, though I'm sure if the case is in my bedroom she can look after it well enough." "Pooh. She's half blind. Why don't you get a better maid?" "Bertha's been with me all my life, and I shall keep her until she is past work. You have no heart, Charvington," she ended virtuously. "She's past work now," said her husband, as he stalked from the boudoir. Nothing more was said, but had Charvington been in the house on that Wednesday evening he would either have asked his wife if the jewels had been put away, or have attended to the matter himself. But during the day he suddenly decided to go up to London in order to see a private detective whom he had employed before on various delicate matters. It would be just as well, thought Charvington, to have this man in the house on Thursday evening. Then, if the two thieves alluded to by Canning did arrive, the man could lay hands on them. Not that Charvington wished to make a public case of the matter, since, as he had hinted to Lesbia, he was anxious to avoid scandal in connection with Tait, whom he shrewdly suspected of having a hand in this new piece of rascality. For this reason he went up to London to engage the private detective, and remained in town for the night. Next day he purposed coming back with his assistant and then the matter could be settled quietly. Lady Charvington would not lose her jewels, and there would be no trouble--publicly at all events--in connection with Mr. Michael Tait.