What sort of rendezvous had my unexpected visit to the summer-house prevented? Had old Mr. Smith, through my field-glasses, caught a glimpse of the other party to it? I had an exciting feeling, about then, that I was within one idea of the solution. But this idea, widely as I cast my net for it, refused to be caught. And presently my little pattern, fragmentary as it was, fell to pieces again. How was I going to account for the theft of the imitation necklace and for the return of it? Well, I didn’t care about that. That didn’t necessarily concern Judy at all. But how about the thing that had happened to her on the veranda yesterday afternoon when the guests were arriving? The thing that had set her world rocking like a boat, that had led her to cry out to Punch, “Are you on my side, whatever happens--whatever I do?” No, I couldn’t solve that. I wanted her to come and tell me about it. She didn’t come, though, and I put in the longest, dreariest afternoon I can remember, waiting for her. When Mr. Ethelbert Smith returned about six o’clock I was in so detestably unamiable a state of mind that a resolute summoning of all the manners I had ever learned hardly availed to produce a decent show of politeness. I didn’t want, I told myself, any more of his cold-hearted observations. However, common civility required me to ask for them, and before he had gone very far I was listening with unfeigned interest. He began with an apology. He had permitted himself this morning to be saddled upon me as a guest, and now, after I’d hospitably made him welcome, and most comfortable, he added, he was about to climb out of the saddle again. In short, he was about to pack his bags and go to The Oaks to stay. It appeared that old Mrs. Corbin, who’d been, of course, the first person he’d asked for on arriving at the house, had seen him at once and made him welcome in the friendliest manner. Furthermore she’d been furiously annoyed to learn that he was not stopping under her roof, and had insisted that he change his plans at once in order to do so. “She’s altered greatly--by illness, of course,” he remarked, “but she’s no less imperious than she was in her best days. She settled the matter of my entertainment then and there, and summoned Victoria as tyrannically as she would have sent for her chambermaid. Victoria came, too.” “Was she startled at finding you there?” I asked.