"Mr. Polke," he said at last, "I do not like what I am hearing about all this. It's a most suspicious thing that the housekeeper should disappear immediately after Miss Fosdyke's first call this morning, and that she should have had some conversation with Mr. Joseph Chestermarke before she went. Really, one dislikes to have to say it of one's neighbours, and of persons of the standing of the Chestermarkes, but their behaviour is--is----" "Suspicious, my lord, suspicious!" said Polke. "There's no denying it. And yet, they're what you might call so defiant, so brazen-faced and insolent, that----" "Here's your London man," interrupted the Earl. "What is he after now?" Starmidge came out of the door of the bank-house alone. He caught sight of Polke and Lord Ellersdeane, smiled, and hurried towards them. He carried something loosely wrapped in brown paper in his hand; as he stepped into the doorway of the club-house, he took the wrapping off, and showed a small morocco-covered box on which was a coronet in gold. "Does your lordship recognize that?" he asked. "My wife's jewel-casket, of course!" exclaimed the Earl. "Of course it is! Bless me!--where did you find it?" "In the chimney, in Mrs. Carswell's bedroom," answered Starmidge, with a grimace at Polke. "It's empty!" Chapter XIII THE PARTNERS UNBEND The Earl took the empty casket from the detective's hand and looked at it, inside and outside, with doubt and wonder. "Now what do you take this to mean?" he asked. "That we've got three people to find, instead of two, my lord," answered Starmidge promptly. "We must be after the housekeeper." "You found this in her room?" asked Polke. "So--you went up there?" "As soon as you'd left me," replied the detective, with a shrewd smile. "Of course! I wanted to have a look round. I didn't forget the chimney. She'd put that behind the back of the grate--a favourite hiding-place. I say she--but, of course, some one else may have put it there. Still--we must find her. You telephoned to the police at Ecclesborough, superintendent?" "Ay, and got small comfort!" answered Polke. "It's a stiff job looking for one woman amongst half a million people." "She wouldn't stop in Ecclesborough," said Starmidge. "She'll be on her way further afield, now. You can get anywhere from Ecclesborough, of course." "Of course!" assented Polke. "She would be in any one of half a dozen big towns within a couple of hours--in some of 'em within an hour--in London itself within three. This'll be another case of printing a description. I wish we'd thought of keeping an eye on her before!" "We haven't got to the stage where we can think of everything," observed Starmidge. "We've got to take things as they come. Well--there's one thing can be done now," he went on, looking at the Earl, "if your lordship'll be kind enough to do it." "I'll do anything that I can," replied Lord Ellersdeane. "What is it?"