An inquest was held; some evidence was taken; and then it was adjourned for a week that the police might have time to make further investigations. They could not, as yet, learn that one suspicious person had known of the jewels. Of all Miss Winter's friends, the one to make himself most busy was the Vicar of Nullington. An idle, easy-going man in general, Mr. Kettle could be aroused in a case like this: all his sympathies were with Miss Winter, and his curiosity was on the alert. "After all," he observed to that young lady, one day when he was sitting with her to discuss details, "after all, the most mysterious part of the affair is not the sudden appearance of Hubert Stone on the scene. I daresay he could readily account for that, poor fellow, if he were living; perhaps he got in by the mail-train on the Sunday night, which you know passes at nearly one o'clock in the morning, and did not care to knock people up. No, the mystery lies in how the information, as to the hiding-place of the jewels, reached the cognisance of the rogue who stole them. And really, as Chief-Constable Wade justly observed, it would seem next to a certainty that the thief must be someone who had an intimate knowledge of the premises of Heron Dyke. You must see that, my dear, for yourself." "I fear I do," sighed Ella. "So far as people's recollection serves, Mrs. Toynbee mentioned simply that the bureau had been removed to your morning-room: Miss Winter's morning-room. Now, how should a common thief know which was Miss Winter's morning-room? It is only since the Squire died and your return that you have made it such." "True," assented Ella. "And altogether, taking one thing with another, I feel inclined to think it might have been no common thief who took them." Ella lifted her eyes quickly. "Have you any suspicions?--of any one in particular?" "No, my dear; no," he answered slowly; and, she thought, dubiously. "We can but wait. Perhaps Wade may ferret out more particulars." But, on the same evening, when the Vicar was at home, safe within the four walls of his study, he dropped a word or two that nearly scared his daughter out of her senses. Somehow he had caught up a doubt in his own mind of Philip Cleeve. "Oh, papa!" exclaimed Maria, in an accent of indignant horror. "I don't say it was he, Maria; I should be very sorry to do that, or to breathe a syllable of this doubt to any one but you. Still, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that things with regard to Philip do look somewhat suspicious--and Dr. Downes has long thought the same." "Papa, papa!" she repeated.