"There, there," said Lucille, trying to calm the excited girl, "have you had your dinner?"
"No, and I don't want any. Listen, everybody, while I tell you about it."
They listened, breathlessly and absorbedly, while Iris told every detail of her adventure.
"And then," she wound up, "after Flossie had searched me as thoroughly as a police matron might have done, she allowed me to put on my things again, and we came back just as we went. I mean, I was put into the car with her, it was a little coupé affair, you know, and the same man drove it. We had the shades up part of the time, but as we made a turn she pulled them down, and as we neared this house, she put the shawl over my head again. It was a nice, white, woolly shawl, and smelt faintly of violet. Well, when we got to the bend of the—road below here, they asked me to get out and walk the rest of the way. I did so, gladly enough! I was so relieved to see the house again, that I just ran to it. They scooted, of course, and that's all. Now, Mr. Hughes, catch 'em!"
"Not so easy, Miss Clyde. The thing was carefully planned, and carried out with equal care. Did they get the pin?"
"They did not! Now, Mr. Hughes—Mr. Chapin, that pin must have some value. What can it be? To say it's a lucky pin is silly, I think."
"But what else could be its value?" said Chapin, wonderingly. "Let me see it."
"I won't let anybody see it, unless we draw the blinds and lock the doors," said Iris, decidedly. "I tell you there is some value to this pin. Could it be made of radium, or something like that?"
"Let's see it," demanded Hughes.
"All right, I will," and Iris locked the doors herself, and drew down the window shades. Then, turning on an electric light, she turned up the hem of her white serge skirt, and began feeling for the pin. And she found it, though the point had come through the material. But the head held it in, and Iris easily extricated it.