"Can you call it nonsense in the face of this, Miss Carrol?"
"That is an accident owing to the late rains."
"Quite so, and that is what the world will consider it. But I can tell you differently. It happened because the Mikado Jewel was in the house."
"It was not!" said Basil imperatively, and would have gone on talking, but that Patricia stopped him.
"It was in the house," she said quickly, "only Mr. Colpster--poor man!--asked Theodore and myself to say nothing about it."
Basil cast a glance at the red heaps. "Then it is buried under this rubbish," he said disdainfully; "for all its occult power, it couldn't look after itself!
"I looked after it," said Akira quietly. "It is now on board the yacht, and I am taking it back to Japan to restore it to the Temple of Kitzuki."
"How did you get it, Akira?"
"Pentreddle, by my desire, took it from the Squire when he went last night to accuse Theodore, your brother, of murder."
"He did not tell me that," said Basil involuntarily.