I spent the evening in fruitless brain-cudgelling. My brightest idea (which came about midnight) was to go back to Aunt Sarah's the first thing in the morning. True, she had forbidden me to come into her presence without that brooch, but that, I felt, must be regarded rather as a burst of rhetoric than as a serious prohibition. Besides, the case might have been stolen by one of her own servants; and, moreover, if I wanted a clue, clearly I must begin my search at the very spot where the theft had been committed. She couldn't object to _that_, anyhow. So in the morning I went. Aunt Sarah seemed to have forgotten her order that I must not approach her without the brooch, but she seemed hurt to find I had not brought it. She had had no sleep all night, she said. She thought I ought to have discovered the thieves before she went to bed; but at any rate, she expected I would do it to-day. I said I would certainly do my best, and I fear I found it necessary to invent a somewhat exciting story of my adventures of the previous evening in search of the brooch. There was a plain-clothes constable, it seemed, still about the place, and the police had searched all the servants' boxes, without discovering anything. Their theory, it seemed, was that some thief must have secreted himself about the garden, entered by a French window soon after Aunt Sarah's arrival, made his way to the bedroom--which would be easy, for there were two staircases--and then made off with the case; and, indeed, Aunt Sarah declared that the clothes in the box were much disturbed when she discovered her loss. The police spoke mysteriously about "a clue," but would not say what it was--which, no doubt, would be unprofessional.