"I can't say. If so, at least, that girl made a big bluff of hunting an ordinary pin. I tried to fool her. I had put a pin of hers in the frill of my blouse, and I kept looking toward it, but furtively, as if eluding her attention. She caught on, and she examined that frill in every plait! She found the pin I had put there, of course, and she took special care of it, though pretending it was of no particular importance. I put one, as if hidden, in my petticoat ruffle, too, and she fairly pounced on that, but she gave me a glance to see if I noticed her satisfaction! Oh, we played our parts, and it was diamond cut diamond, I can tell you. I couldn't help liking her; she's really a nice girl, and she must have been made, or hired, to do what she did. She made me take down my hair, and she brushed it herself, in hope of finding a pin in it! And I did think of hiding it there at first, but I thought it safer where I put it. You see, it couldn't lose out, and there was little likelihood of her thinking to feel in the hem of my skirt." "Very well done; you're a heroine, Miss Clyde, indeed you are! But, I fear the end is not yet. When they find they haven't the right pin----" "How can they possibly know?" exclaimed Miss Darrel. "How can they tell that they haven't?" "They must be able to tell, because they were not satisfied with the pins Mr. Pollock took from here." "Pollock!" cried Iris. "It wasn't Pollock who ran that car to-day." "No, but it's his affair. He sent the little car for you----" "How did he know I'd be out there and with the pin in my possession?" "He's been on the watch, all day, likely. Oh, you don't know the cleverness of a really clever villain. But give me an idea which way you went." "I have no idea. You see, all the time the shades were up the shawl was over my head, and when she took the shawl off I couldn't see out at all." "You've no notion what road you traveled?" "Not a bit, after we left this place. I think they made unnecessary turns, for the car turned around often." "You see what clever rascals we have to deal with?" grumbled Hughes. "And you recognized no landmarks?" "Not one." "What was the house like?" "Fairly nice; old-fashioned, but not antique at all. Decent furnishings, but no taste, and nothing of real value. Commonplace, all through." "The hardest kind of a house to trace!" "Yes, there was nothing distinctive at all." "No people in it?" "Not that I know of. I heard no sound. Flossie took me into a little sitting room to undress, not a bedroom. Everything was clean, but ordinary. Of course, I'd know the room if I saw it again, but I've no glimmering of an idea where it was." "Strangest case I ever heard of!" mused Mr. Chapin. "I think the pin has some especial value. Maybe it is of gold, inside." "Nonsense!" said Lucille, scornfully, "that amount of gold wouldn't be worth anything! I'm inclined to the radium theory, though I don't know a thing about the stuff."