He linked his arm through Gertstein's and drew him aside. "I would like to have a little talk with you alone. Perhaps I can straighten out things. You people go and have a look round." As Labar led the other two away Winter turned fiercely upon him. "What have you said to the old boy?" he demanded. "He got it pretty nearly straight, sir," admitted the inspector. "I told him that it was long odds against getting the stuff back." "You ought to be in the infant class," snorted Winter. "Now what about----" The conference usual in such circumstances began. Presently the Assistant Commissioner rejoined them. As they moved about the house the inspector imparted to them such facts as he knew, and, though his face showed nothing, he waited with the eagerness of a boy for some hint as to whether he was to be left to deal with the affair. But his superiors did not commit themselves, and he was relieved when they took their departure. He got down to the work in hand. There was plenty to occupy him, for every person in the house had to be interviewed. As Winter dryly observed to his companions on his way back to the Yard, Labar could work like a fiend when he had some incentive. CHAPTER III Lacking any more definite line at the moment, Labar felt impelled to the theory that there had been collusion between the thieves and someone in the house. That at least furnished a working hypothesis which might be abandoned according to circumstances. It was for this reason that he doggedly set himself to interview all and sundry instead of leaving his assistants to weed them out. With the shrewd suavity of an Old Bailey lawyer he examined and cross-examined, an obese shorthand writer at his elbow, until he had a complete surface knowledge, at any rate, of the movements of everyone in the house for the last twenty-four hours, and much information of their antecedents and habits. Superficially, he had to admit, as he stretched himself with a yawn some hours later, there was no one he could suspect. Perhaps, in the future, when the statements had been checked up, some hint might develop. But he did not bank on that. Frequently this kind of tedious work resulted in nothing, although it was always possible that some vitally important fact might arise. Then the last person on his list entered the room. She was described as Miss Penelope Noelson, companion to Mrs. Gertstein. She was a girl of perhaps twenty-two, not tall, but exquisitely proportioned. Fair hair surmounted a vivacious face, which was relieved of the insipidity of mere beauty by a determined chin, a humorous touch that lurked about the corners of her mouth, and a nose very slightly inclined to what her friends described as _retroussé_, but which she herself bluntly declared to be snub. On the whole she was such a girl as might make a man turn to take another look--a girl not so much beautiful as piquantly pretty.