"Oh, not all that," he denied her allegation. "They had the whole lot of us cooped up together for investigation for as much as two hours. I thought I shouldn't have time to dress! I'm as hungry as a hawk!" He rolled it out with the full gusto with which he was by this time engaged on his first course. "Poor dear," said Flora with cooing mock-sympathy, "and did they starve it? But would it mind telling us, now that it has its food, what is true, and what was the gallant part it played this afternoon?" "Well," he followed her whimsical lead, "the chief detective and I were the star performers. I found the ring wasn't there, and he found he couldn't find it." "Don't you know any more than the paper?" Flora mourned. "Considerably less--if I know the papers." He grinned with a fine flash of even teeth. "What do you want me to say?" "Why, stupid, the adventures of Harry Cressy, Esquire. How did you feel?" "Thirsty." "Oh, Harry!" She glanced about, as if for a missile to threaten him with. "Upon my word! But look here--wait a minute!" he arrived deliberately at what was required of him. "Never mind how I felt; but if you want to know the way it happened--here's your Maple Room." He began a diagram with forks on the cloth before him, and Clara, who had watched their sparring from her point of vantage in the background, now leaned forward, as if at last they were getting to the point. "This is the case, furthest from the door." He planted a salt-cellar in his silver inclosure. "I come in very early, at half-past two, before the crowd; fail to meet you there." He made mischievous bows to right and left. "I go out again. But first I see this ring." "What was it like?" Flora demanded. "Like?" Harry turned a speculative eye to the dull glow of the candelabrum, as if between its points of flame he conjured up the vision of the vanished jewel. "Like a bit of an old gold heathen god curled round himself, with his head, which was mostly two yellow sapphires, between his knees, and a big, blue stone on top. Soft, yellow gold, so fine you could almost dent it. And carved! Even through a glass every line of it is right." He paused and ran the tip of his finger along the silver outline of his diagram, as if the mere memory of the precious eyes of the little god had power to arrest all other consideration. "Well, there he was," he pulled himself up, "and I can't remember when a thing of that sort has stayed by me so. I couldn't seem to get away from it. I dropped into the club and talked to Buller about it. He got keen, and I went back with him to have another look at it. Well, at the door Buller stops to speak to a chap going out--a crazy Englishman he had picked up at the club. I go on. By this time there's a crowd inside, but I manage to get up to the case. And first I miss the spot altogether. And then I see the card with his name; and then, underneath I see the hole in the velvet where the god has been."