The old lady, in her wheel chair, sat at the far end of the room, facing us as we came in. Judy--my first glance around had been to make sure she was there--sat drooping a little, but in an unusually formal attitude for her, on the couch in the corner. Bruce was in another corner sitting--evidently by command, and not liking it; one could see he’d rather have been on his feet--bolt upright on a hard little chair. Victoria, trying to look at ease and not succeeding very well at it, had seated herself near one of the windows. The old lady greeted me with ceremonious courtesy, thanked me for having come, and directed Miss Digby to place a chair for me. Her greeting to old Mr. Smith was less formal. “I thought I might need you as an expert, Ethelbert,” she said. “But I doubt now if I shall.” Then she told Miss Digby she could go and waited in dead silence until the door was closed behind her. Sad and humiliating as old Mrs. Corbin’s bad periods must be--those times when, as Judy said, she was not presentable--it was already evident to me that at this particular early morning hour of this particular day she was as good as ever. I felt my spirits rising a little as this realization came home. Somehow I was counting another addition to Judy’s phalanx. I don’t know why I felt that the old matriarch would be on her side. There was nothing in Judy’s forlorn appearance to warrant such a conclusion. She opened with heavy artillery upon her daughter-in-law. “It seems to me, Victoria,”--her voice crackled like sparks out of a coil--“that I have allowed you to make a mess of this business about long enough. I’m going to see what I can do with it myself.” “I haven’t regarded the mess as of my making,” Victoria retorted coolly enough--a little too coolly not to betray the fact that she was frightened. She’s always been afraid of old Mrs. Corbin. “However, I’ll be glad to see what you make of it.” “Punch tells me ...” the old woman began again, and looked around as if in search of him. “I wanted him in here,” she threw in, “but it doesn’t matter.--Punch tells me that the necklace has been stolen again.” Victoria nodded. “It was taken last night, from Bruce ...” she began. The old woman interrupted her. “I asked if it had been stolen, and you say it was. That’s enough for the present. If it was stolen last night, I’d like to know what this is.” She stretched out a hand which had been lying in her lap and opened it. I jumped, and I think most of us did, for there dangled the necklace. Well, wait a minute;--a necklace, anyhow. “I found it,” she went on, “in Judy’s room this morning. Judy herself wasn’t there. She was running away, I understand, with her new young man. But she’d left this behind her, lying among the litter on her dressing-table like a string of glass beads. I assume it’s not the necklace that was stolen, but Ethelbert here will tell us, no doubt, whether it is or not, if you care to refer it to him.”