"Come with me, madam. We have no choice."
When the door closed behind her, the constable walked up and down the floor.
"How deceitful appearances are! That woman looks as pure and innocent as an angel, and I half believed her protestations; but here in the basket, sure enough, hidden at the bottom, are the jewelry and the gold. No sign of the papers, but she may have destroyed them.
"Thief or not, she is a grand beauty; and if her heart was not in that prayer she put up just now, she is a grand actress also. This is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary. Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl's eyes went through and through me a while ago like a two-edged dirk."
As he vented his views of his profession, one of the policemen lighted his pipe and puffed vigorously.
Mrs. Foster came back, followed by her victim.
"I find absolutely nothing secreted on the prisoner."
"No papers of any description?"
"None, sir."
"Madam, your basket contains the missing jewelry and money, at least a portion of it, and I shall place it in the hands of the sheriff."