It was that pin! These strange people were after the pin!
And it was sticking in her shirtwaist frill, just where she had put it when Polly gave it to her. They must not get it! Now, if ever, she must use her wits. For, if anybody wanted that pin so desperately, it was, it must be valuable. Also, if Ursula Pell had cherished that pin as old Polly described, it surely was valuable.
Iris thought quickly. This sharp-eyed girl would be difficult to hoodwink, yet it must be done. Had she seen the pin? A furtive glance at the full ruffle of lawn and lace showed Iris that the pin was not prominently visible, though she could see it. Why did they want it? But that didn't matter now—now she must hide it. Would she be searched, she wondered. Surely she would not be submitted to such an insult. Yet, it might be. At any rate, it must be hidden. This was the real pin, the others had not been, and these people who were after it knew that. What the pin meant, or why they wanted it, must be left undecided, but the pin must be made safe.
Iris thought of dropping it out of the window, which was open, though the shade was down, but concluded that her ever finding it again would be too doubtful. She thought of concealing it in her abundant hair—but suppose she were made to take down her hair! A sort of intuition told her that she would be searched, and she must be ready.
At last she thought of a hiding-place, and as a start she drew Flossie's attention to a slightly loose shade tassel, while, with a gesture as of straightening a tiny velvet bow at her throat, she drew her hand down the frill, and brought the pin with it.
Concealed in her left hand, and stealthily watching her companion's eyes, she waited her chance, and then, unnoticed, she thrust it, head end first, into the hem of her white serge skirt. The loose weave of the material made this possible, and the pin disappeared into the inch wide hem. It might be safe there and it might not. Iris thought it would, and at any rate she could think of no better place to conceal it.
Also, getting another pin from her belt she placed it where the "valuable" pin had been, for further precaution.
Nor did she accomplish her work much too soon, for very shortly they drove in at a gate and stopped at the door of a small house.
There was no attempt at hiding now, and Iris was handed out of the car by the man who had driven them. With no appearance of stealth, Flossie ushered her into the house, which proved to be an ordinary, middle-class dwelling of country people.
The sitting room they went into had a table with a red cover, some books of no interest, and an old-fashioned lamp on a wool-work mat. The patent rocker and a few other worn chairs betokened family furnishings bought in the eighties, and not renewed since.