"The police thought so too, Mr. Hereford, and last night and this morning they have sifted the contents of the room through their fingers. They have left only the four bare walls, and soaked the paper from those in the hope of finding some crevice in the plaster. If the Surakarta had been the size of a pinhead, it could not have escaped them. But they found it was not there!"
Hereford straightened dismally.
"Then all the way through this I have been—and acted like—a fool!" he said unhappily. He sat down again and put his face into his hands. Then he looked and saw her watching him; and he had the feeling that, as he raised his head, her expression changed. She got up, as though uneasy under his questioning look, and went to the mantel and picked up some strange dried sea-
