A ROMANCLE FROM 0 DETLECLIVES CASE-BOOA. 207

suggested that he should be. In fact, no suspicion had fallen upon him. 1 really could not resist something like a smile as I remarked :—

“That was rcally a most cxtraordinary oversight, and may prove very scrious for you. lor, assuming that you are right, and that Spieglemann 1s right in his statcment that the lady lies under suspicion of having been concerned in other cases of a similar kind, 1s 1t not highly probable that the coach- man has been in collusion with her, and she passed the stolen property to him? 1f this 15 not so, how did she get rid of the pendant? Nothing 1s truer than that in criminal cases it 1s the scemingly improbable that 1s most probable.

“Certunly, on the face of it nothing could scem more improbable than that a young lady, well connected and well off, afflicted with kleptomania, should make a cenfidant of her coach- man. Yet it 1s the most probable thing imaginable, but both you and Spicgle- mann have overlooked 1t.”

Mr. Coleman was per- feetly crestfallen, and frecly admitted that a very grave oversight had been com- mitted. Thanking him and Mr. Whitney 1 with- drew, and 1t was perlectly clear to me that 1 left the two gentlemen mm a very different frame of mind to what they had been in when I first saw them.

In passing all the facts, as I now knew them, under review, 1 could not deny that circumstances looked dark against Miss Artors; and putting aside the possibility that some- body eclse might have stolen the pendant, 1 ad- mitted the strong proba- bility that she was in reality the thief. That bemg se, the 1dea struck me—and 1t evidently had not struck anyone else, not even the renowned Spieglemann -that she was a confederate, more likely than not a victim, of the coachman. On this supposition T determined to act, and my next step was to scek an interview with

• SHE ROSE FROM THIL TABLE.”

Miss Artois, in order that T nmight form some opinion of her from personal knowledge. T obtained this mterview through the solicitors who had been engaged on her behalf by her devoted lover, Harold Kingsley. Although prepared to find her good looking, T certainly was not prepared for the type of beauty she represented.

I don’t think T cver looked upon a more perfect, a sweeter, and T will go so far as to say a more angehic face than she possessed, while her form and mould were such that an artist would have gone into raptures about hero T was informed that she had undergone a prehiminary examination before the police magistrate, who had remanded her without bail, although bail had been offered to an unlimited amount by her uncle ; but the magistrate had stated that he would consider the question of bail the next time she came before him.

As T entered the hittle cell she occupied at the police station, and intro- duced myself, giving her to understand at the same time that T was there by request of Mr. KNingsley, she rose from the table at which she had heen sitting cngaged 1 the perusal of a book, which 1 subsc- quently discovered to be a well-thumbed, dilapi- dated, and somewhat dirty copy of Moorc’s Lallak Koorsr ; and bowing with exquisite grace she said in a low, musical, and touch- ingly pathetic voice: -

“It 15 good of you to come, and more than kind of Mr. Kingsley to send you; but I am sorry that you have come, and I wish that you would leave me without another word.”

Her osoft, gazelle-hke eyes, although apparently bent upon me, had a far- away look mn them; and she spoke as a person n a trance might speak. Altogether there wassome- thing about her that at once aroused my curtosity and interest.

“That 1s a somewhat strange wisn, Miss Artors,” T answered. “T am here in your