"I suppose all the things are safe?" Mabel asked.
"Quite. I told you where I put them. Come on, Jimmy; let's help lay the table. We'll get Eliza to put out the best china."
They went.
"It was lucky," said Gerald, struck by a sudden thought, "that the burglars didn't go for the diamonds in the treasure-chamber."
"They couldn't," said Mabel almost in a whisper; "they didn't know about them. I don't believe anybody knows about them, except me and you, and you're sworn to secrecy. This, you will remember, had been done almost at the beginning. I know aunt doesn't know. I just found out the spring by accident. Lord Yalding's kept the secret well."
"I wish I'd got a secret like that to keep," said Gerald. "If the burglars do know," said Mabel, "it'll all come out at the trial. Lawyers make you tell everything you know at trials, and a lot of lies besides."
"There won't be any trial," said Gerald, kicking the leg of the piano thoughtfully.
"No trial?"
"It said in the paper," Gerald went on slowly, "'The miscreants must have received warning from a confederate, for the admirable preparations to arrest them as they returned for their ill-gotten plunder were unavailing. But the police have a clew.'"
"What a pity!" said Mabel.