And almost before the last words had left her lips Hilary whisked herself dexterously out of the room, and slammed the door after her. Margaret heard her locking the door of the bedroom as she passed it on her way downstairs. Margaret's mixture of feelings at this treatment was so curious that at first she could neither laugh nor be angry. She was too angry to laugh, and too amused to be angry. When, however, she walked into her bedroom and saw how thoroughly Hilary had turned over every one of her possessions, leaving them either in a rumpled state in the drawers, or scattered on the floor, indignation triumphed over amusement. Hilary's charges, too, absurd though, of course, they were, had been brought against her in all seriousness, and Margaret's rising anger made her feel that she must be made to retract them immediately. She found, on going first to one door and then to the other, that though the door of her bedroom was locked, that of the dressing-room was not; for Hilary, finding after she had slammed the door that the key was on the inside, had been obliged to leave it unlocked rather than risk a struggle, for she had been doubtful whether Miss Carson would have permitted herself to be locked in had the swiftness of the action not taken her by surprise. As Margaret went downstairs she heard Hilary's voice talking fast and eagerly in the drawing-room. She had had five or six minutes start to tell her tale in, and a good deal can be said in five or six minutes, provided that the listener does not hinder the narrator by interruptions. And Mrs. Danvers had not once interrupted, and Hilary had therefore been able to make such good use of her time that she had given her mother a full and complete account of the way in which her first suspicions that there was something mysterious about Miss Carson had gradually grown into a certainty, as clue after clue came into her hands, until this afternoon, by finding all Colonel Baker's stolen property locked away in a box under her bed, she had actually proved her to be a member of the notorious gang of burglars. Mrs. Danvers' knitting had long ago dropped on to her lap, her ball of wool had rolled unheeded under a chair, and her eyes, round with incredulity and dismay, had been fixed unblinkingly upon her daughter. "In a box under her bed! All Colonel Baker's things!" she gasped. "Oh, Hilary! and you mean to say that you actually found them there?" "Yes, every one of them, not half an hour ago," returned Hilary complacently. "And what is more, hidden away in her drawer, I found this." And she opened the case and displayed the necklace and miniature to her mother. "She doesn't attempt to claim Colonel Baker's things as her own, but she persists in saying that this is hers. And considering the inscription, 'To my daughter Margaret,' that is written on it, it is rather silly of her. Without doubt," Hilary added, "it belongs to Miss Cora Anatolia, the Bulgarian dancer."