"Mind you," the Old Man in the Corner proceeded, after a moment's pause, "the public had no information as to the exact words, and so on, that passed between Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the officials of Scotland Yard. All that I am telling you, and what I am still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the papers. Sensation-lovers were immensely interested in the case from the outset, because, although both public and police are familiar enough with the tragi-comedy of the good-looking young blackguard who gets confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of jewellery, this was the first time that the confidence trick had been played by a well-known man about town--reputed wealthy, since he had gone to the length of paying a friend's gambling debts--on a society lady who was not in her first youth and must presumably have had some knowledge of the world she lived in. "Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying that during the drive home in the car she took off her pearls and handed them to her fiancé, who slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although when presently the car drew up at her door she suggested running up to her room to get the case for them. The Captain, however, declared this to be unnecessary. What he said was, 'I will sleep with them under my pillow to-night, and to-morrow morning first thing I will take them round to the bank for you.' After this he said good-night. Lady Angela let herself into the house with her latchkey, and Captain Shillington then dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit of a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so desperately hot. "And it was at this point," the Old Man in the Corner now said with deliberate emphasis as he worked away at an exceptionally intricate knot in his beloved bit of string, "it was at this point that certain facts leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect. "It appears that on the Saturday morning at break of day one of the boats belonging to the Thames District Police found a grey Homburg hat floating under one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck to one of the wooden piles close by, a man's silk scarf. There was no name inside the hat or any other clue as to the owner's identity, but both the scarf, which had once been white or light grey, and the hat were terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with blood. The police had tried on the quiet to trace the owner of the hat and scarf but without success. After Lady Angela had told her story of the missing pearls, the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at once identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf, however, she knew nothing about.