Lucille and Iris followed Fleming Stone's flying footsteps down the stairs and found Fibsy, black but triumphant.
"Here's your pinny-pin, Mr. Stone!" he cried, exhausted from fatigue and excitement, and with perspiration streaming down his sooty face. "Don't tell me it mayn't be the one! It's gotter be—oh, F. S., it's gotter be!"
Only in moments of strong excitement did Terence address his employer by anything but his dignified name, but this moment was a strenuous one, and Fibsy broke loose. Tears rolled down his cheeks, as he gave the detective a pleading look.
"All right, Fibs, I've no doubt it's the one. Pins don't grow much in coal-holes, and though it may not be——" a glance at the woeful countenance made him quickly revise his speech, "But it is! I'm sure it is," he finished, smiling kindly at the big-eyed blackamoor.
"Sure! sure!" cried Sam, capering about, "nice pinny-pin! Sam put it there after Missy Iris put it in chair."
Fleming Stone looked at the pin curiously. As he had been informed, it was a common pin, of medium size, with nothing about it to distinguish it from its millions of brothers that are lost every day, everywhere.
"I'll take it up where there's a better light on it," he said, finally. "Fibsy, you're a trump, old boy, and after you've sought the assistance that a bath-tub grants, return to the sitting room, and I'll tell you of the value of your find, in words of one syllable."
Elated beyond all words, Fibsy ran away to bathe, and the others went to the sitting room that had been Ursula Pell's.
With a very strong lens, Fleming Stone examined the pin.
"This pin is worth its weight in gold, a million times over," he said, after the briefest examination. "It explains all!—your aunt's bequest, the efforts of Young to get it—but, I say, let's wait till Fibsy comes down before I tell you the pin's secret. It's his due, after he found it for us."