"You remember"--she looked at Staff--"when we met in the saloon, about half-past five, and went on deck?... Well, right after that, Jane left my rooms to return the hat you had been showing me to your steward. She was gone not over five minutes, and she swears the door was locked all the time; she remembers locking it when she went out and unlocking it when she returned. There was no indication that anybody had been in the rooms, except one that we didn't discover until I started to go to bed, a little while ago. Then I thought of my jewels. They were all kept in this handbag"--she dropped a hand upon a rather small Lawrence bag of tan leather on the table before her--"under my bed, behind the steamer trunk. I told Jane to see if it was all right. She got it out, and then we discovered that this had happened to it." She turned the bag so that the other side was presented for inspection, disclosing the fact that some sharp instrument had been used to cut a great flap out of the leather, running in a rough semicircle from clasp to clasp of the frame. "It wasn't altogether empty," she declared with a trace of wonder in her voice; "but that only makes it all the more mysterious. All my ordinary jewels were untouched; nothing had been taken except the case that held the Cadogan collar." "And the collar itself, I hope?" Iff put in quietly. The actress turned upon him with rising colour. "You hope--!" she exclaimed. The little man made a deprecatory gesture. "Why, yes," he said. "It would seem a pity that a crook cute enough to turn a trick as neat as that should have got nothing for his pains but a velvet-lined leather case, worth perhaps a dollar and a half--or say two dollars at the outside, if you make a point of _that_." "How do you happen to know it was a velvet-lined leather case?" Alison flashed. Iff laughed quietly. "My dear lady," he said, "I priced the necklace at Cottier's in Paris the day before you purchased it. Unfortunately it was beyond my means." "A bit thick," commented the purser in an acid voice. "Now, listen"--Iff turned to face him with a flush of choler--"you keep on that way and I'll land on you if it's the last act of my gay young life. You hear me?" "That will do, sir!" barked the captain. "I trust so, sincerely," replied Iff. "Be silent!" The captain's voice ascended a full octave. "Oh, very well, very well. I hear you--perfectly." With this the little man subsided, smiling feebly at vacancy. Staff interposed hastily, in the interests of peace: "The supposition is, then, that the thief got in during those five minutes that Jane was away from the room?" "It couldn't have happened at any other time, of course," said Alison. "And, equally of course, it couldn't have happened then," said Iff. "Why not?" the woman demanded. "The girl was gone only five minutes. That's right, isn't it?" "Yes, sir," said Jane. "And the door was locked--you're positive about that?" "Quite, sir."