Raglan shook his head. “I hadn’t a chance. I’d planned to, but the old woman wouldn’t quiet down; kept ringing for her nurse, and quarreling with her; wanted more dope than the nurse would give her, evidently. So I had to wait. I got my chance the next day. Just the time the lad here thought. I don’t know how he figured it out. The servants were all at lunch, I knew, and the family out on the veranda waiting for the guests to come. It was a close connection but I figured the safe wouldn’t give me any trouble, and it didn’t. I didn’t waste any time about it though. “I got the necklace, dropped it in my pocket, shut the safe and came out into the hall. Everything was all right and I had a clear out, down the servants’ stairs. I had my case with me and anybody I might have met would have thought I’d come back that morning to finish up. “I stood there with my hand in my pocket, feeling of the necklace. I hadn’t taken time to examine it. It hadn’t occurred to me to doubt that it was all right. But it did now. The feel of it was just a shade off, enough to make me suspicious. “Just then I heard someone coming up the main stairs, so I went up instead of down. Back to that damned box room. There I turned my torch on the thing and saw at once that I’d been done. So I settled down to think it out. “The old lady had been done, too, some time or other. That was plain enough. There was no doubt about her thinking this was the right string. There wasn’t any doubt, either, when I thought it over, that by taking the phony string I’d played straight into somebody’s hands. Whoever had made the substitution had nothing more to worry about now. I was the goat and I didn’t like it. “Of course, if the real necklace had actually been stolen and disposed of there was no help for it. But there was almost as good a chance that it had been borrowed--pawned perhaps. “That seemed more likely the more I thought about it. Whoever had pawned it must have been sweating blood over what would happen when the old woman gave the necklace to the girl. They’d have one good laugh over the boob who’d stolen the imitation necklace, and think no more about it. “Well, then, why not put the phony string back in the old woman’s room? It might not do anything more than take the laugh off me. But it might, you see, do duty as a decoy for the real one. Besides, it would make everybody think that some fool amateur had taken the thing, lost his nerve and brought it back. Head off a lot of prying around. “That night I started out in my pajamas, had a bath and shaved in the nearest bathroom, went down-stairs and put the necklace back. I’d have put it back in the safe, but the nurse was sleeping there that night, so I didn’t chance it. I went back up-stairs feeling pretty good. And then I got a devil of a jolt.” Punch grinned. “When I came up-stairs after you,” he asked, “and turned on the light in the billiard room?” “My God!” murmured Raglan after a long stare at him.