“Miss Berry,” I said severely, “I wonder that you can look me in the face. I trusted you as a woman, and you have outraged that trust. I never dreamed that you were--that you were an adventuress. It was certainly a clever plot, and but for the smartness of the police I should, in my innocence, have fallen a victim to your designs. For myself, I am grateful to the police. I can understand and excuse their mistake in regarding me as your accomplice. That will soon be set right, for Lord Trent will be here. In the meantime, of course, I have been put to considerable humiliation. Nevertheless, even this is better than having followed you to your ‘sister’s.’ In your ‘sister’s’ lodging I might have been knocked senseless, or even murdered. Moreover, the emeralds are safe.” She put on an innocent expression, playing the injured maiden. “Mr. Saunders, you surely do not imagine----” “Miss Berry, no protestations, I beg. Let me say now that I have always detected in your character something underhand, something crafty.” “I swear----” she began again. “Don’t trouble,” I interrupted her icily, “for I shall not believe you. This night will certainly be a warning to me.” With that I leaned my back against the mantelpiece, and abandoned myself to gloomy thought. It was a moment for me of self-abasement. I searched my heart, and I sorrowfully admitted that my predicament was primarily due to disobeying that golden rule--beware of women. I saw now that it was only my absurd fancy for this wicked creature which had led me to accept the office of guarding those emeralds during their night-passage across Eaton Square. I ought to have refused in the first place, for the job was entirely outside my functions; strictly, the butler should have done it. And this woman in front of me--this Susan Berry, in whom the old Marchioness had such unbounded trust! So she belonged to the con-fraternity of jewel thieves--a genus of which I had often read, but which I had never before met with. What audacity such people must need in order to execute their schemes! But then the game was high. The Cockfosters emeralds were worth, at a moderate estimate, twelve thousand pounds. There are emeralds and emeralds, the value depends on the colour; these were the finest Colombian stones, of a marvellous tint, and many of them were absolutely without a flaw. There were five stones of seven carats each, and these alone must have been worth at least six thousand pounds. Yes, it would have been a great haul, a colossal haul.