It was a thump rather than a knock that we heard at the door just then. I guessed who it was, gathered up my crutches, and went and opened it. There sat old Mrs. Corbin in her wheel chair, unattended. She must have run herself up in the elevator. “You’ve taxed my curiosity beyond what it would bear,” she announced grimly. “I hope what you’ve got for me, in here, is worth my coming up to look at.” It was an immense relief to me that she had come, and even more that she’d arrived on the scene ahead of her son. It was, after all, for her to decide what was to be done with our disgusting captive. She turned a long stare upon him, and evidently saw him, despite his fine feathers, for exactly what he was, for, without a word of enlightenment either from Mr. Smith or from me, she said, “So this is the thief Punch has been thinking about for the whole of the past week? I’m glad he’s been brought to light.” “Raglan is well up to the top of his class as a gem thief,” Mr. Smith now explained. “I’ve known him and his exploits for years. But since Punch caught him and we took the necklace away from him he seems to have turned his thoughts from burglary to blackmail.” “Blackmail, eh?” the old woman echoed, with a sardonic grin. “Well, you may tell him there’s nothing in it. It’s never worth while paying money to a blackmailer, since no one with decency enough to stay bought overnight will offer his silence for sale.” “Exactly,” Mr. Smith agreed. “Raglan has been hidden,” he went on, “most of the time since Wednesday, in the trunk closet on this floor. It appears that this room has certain acoustical peculiarities....” “Been eavesdropping, has he--on me and Victoria? Well, he’s welcome to tell his story to any one he can get to listen. I don’t like to look at him. Can’t he be tied up and put out of sight somewhere till he can be taken to jail?” Alec’s arrival just then answered the question. Punch, who came back with him, had told him enough of the story to obviate the need of further explanations. Raglan was looking venomous by now. He was evidently under a heavy temptation to free his mind. But Alexander Corbin had a way with him which, to one constitutionally averse to violence, must have been overpowering. He didn’t take the trouble to tie the rascal; merely ordered him to stick his hands as deep as he could in his trousers pockets and walked him off at the muzzle of his revolver. “Have some of the men take him to the lock-up in the village,” Mrs. Corbin told Alec, “and come back as soon as you’ve disposed of him. You’ll find us in my sitting-room down-stairs.” Punch was for following his uncle and the prisoner, but the old lady called him back. “I shall want you,” she said. Then she asked what time it was.