"That's why I asked you all to be brought 'ere. That's why I took you all out and made the thing clear to you before your own eyes; William Collop said he'd find the hem'rald where his induction told him it would be. And there he found it!" His face was irradiated with no common glory. "An' now," he said, at the end of this harangue, and plunging his hand into his coat pocket to fish out the gem, "now I restore it--'Ullo!" he frowned; the groping of his hand in his pocket looked like some small animal fighting in a bag. "'Ullo!" he repeated and still he groped. "'Ullo--'ullo! Wot's this!" His face grew black. He eyed successively with some disfavour the Professor, McTaggart and Galton. "You were all close together," he said suspiciously, "as we came through that winder!" Then suddenly, "Ah! 'ere it is! Smother me if it 'adn't gone through a hole in the lining. That's my missus, that is. She's that careless." And turning the receptacle inside out he gingerly picked the jewel from the tear between the sateen, with threads still attached to its setting. "There now! Wot was I saying? I restore it to its rightful owner!" And with a bow, unlike that of Lord Chesterfield's dancing master, he handed it to Marjorie. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Collop, thank you!" said Marjorie. "Thank you a thousand times. I don't know how to thank you!" "It's really very remarkable, Mr. Collop, very remarkable indeed. Very remarkable," said the Home Secretary. He went so far as to wring his subordinate by the hand. "We are infinitely obliged to you." The guilty three were less enthusiastic; but they murmured as though they would be polite--though Galton's murmur, overheard by Vic, was, "I believe he pinched it himself!" And Vic answered in a second whisper, "Fat-head!"--a chosen epithet delivered with such real contempt in the slit of a dark eye as made the poor horse-puller wince. Then Aunt Amelia bleated: "I don't quite understand. _Who_ does Mr. Collop say stole the emerald?" "Amelia! Amelia!" protested her brother severely. "But I want to know," began poor Aunt Amelia pathetically. "I didn't hear properly. I want to know who it is has been found to have stolen the ..." Her brother interrupted desperately. "I'm so sorry," he cried, turning to the others, but directing his remarks particularly and courteously to McTaggart, as the stranger. "You must excuse my sister. She does not always hear." "I must thank you myself, personally and warmly, Mr. Collop," said Marjorie, the ancient courtesy of the Bohuns strong in her veins. "We'd all got lousy with worry, and you've hit the cocoanut." "Thank you, Miss, I'm sure," said Mr. Collop, bowing again in the manner aforesaid. And they all drew apart to various rooms, but Victoria Mosel, lingering for a moment, whispered in Mr. Collop's ear, "I saw it in your hand _before_ the tree!" The detective started. "For Gawd's sake!" he pleaded under his breath.