"Simply this," said Raffles Holmes. "The present four hundred consists of about 19,250 people, of whom about twenty-five per cent. go to Newport at one time or another—say, 4812. Of these 4812 about ten per cent. are eligible for invitations to the Burlingame dinners, or 480. Now whom of the 480 possibilities having access to the Burlingame cottage would we naturally suspect? Surely only those who were in the vicinity the night of the robbery. By a process of elimination we narrowed them down to just ten persons exclusive of Mrs. Burlingame herself and her husband, old Billie Burlingame. We took the lot and canvassed them. There were Mr. and Mrs. Willington Bodfish—they left early and the stomacher was known to be safe at the time of their departure. There were Bishop and Mrs. Pounderby, neither of whom would be at all likely to come back in the dead of night and remove property that did not belong to them. There were Senator and Mrs. Jorrocks. The Senator is after bigger game than diamond stomachers, and Mrs. Jorrocks is known to be honest. There were Harry Gaddsby and his wife. Harry doesn't know enough to go in when it rains, and is too timid to call even his soul his own, so he couldn't have taken it; and Mrs. Gaddsby is long on stomachers, having at least five, and therefore would not be likely to try to land a sixth by questionable means. In that way we practically cleared eight possibilities of suspicion.
"'Now, Mrs. Burlingame,' said I, 'that leaves four persons still in the ring—yourself, your husband, your daughter, and the Duke of Snarleyow, your daughter's newly acquired fiancé, in whose honor the dinner was given. Of these four, you are naturally yourself the first to be acquitted. Your husband comes next, and is not likely to be the guilty party, because if he wants a diamond stomacher he needn't steal it, having money enough to buy a dozen of them if he wishes. The third, your daughter, should be regarded as equally innocent, because if she was really desirous of possessing the jewel all she had to do was to borrow it from you. That brings us down to the Duke of—"
"'Hush! I beg of you, Mr. Raffles Holmes!' she cried, in great agitation. 'Not another word, I beseech you! If any one should overhear us—The subject, after all, is an unprofitable one, and I'd—I'd rather drop it, and it—it—er—it has just occurred to me that possibly I—er—possibly I—'
"'Put the jewel in the safe yourself?' I suggested.
"'Yes,' said Mrs. Burlingame,' with a grateful glance and a tremendous sigh of relief. 'Now that I think of it, Mr. Raffles Holmes—that was it. I— er—I remember perfectly that—er—that I didn't wear it at all the night of my little dinner, and that I did leave it behind me when I left town.'"
"Humph!" said I. "That may account for the extra $5000—"
"It may," said Raffles Holmes, pursing his lips into a deprecatory smile.
IV THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
"I think," said Raffles Holmes, as he ran over his expense account while sitting in my library one night some months ago, "that in view of the present condition of my exchequer, my dear Jenkins, it behooveth me to get busy. Owning a motor-car is a demned expensive piece of business, and my balance at the bank has shrunk to about $1683.59, thanks to my bills for cogs, clutches, and gasoline, plus the chauffeur's fines."
"In what capacity shall you work, Raffles or Holmes?" I asked, pausing in my writing and regarding him with that affectionate interest which contact with him had inspired in me.