“Yes.”
“Mrs. Hale, was the table on which the necklace lay in line with any light outside?”
“I think probably with the direct ray of an electric globe shining through the farther window.”
“Then, Mr. Greene,” said, Average Jones, “the glint of the fire-blue stones undoubtedly caught your eye. You seized on the necklace and carried it out on the fire-escape balcony, where the cool air or the milk-driver’s hail awakened you. Have you no recollection of seeing such a thing?”
“Not the faintest, unhappily.”
“Then he must have dropped it to the ground below,” said Kirby.
“I don’t think so,” controverted Jones slowly. “Mr. Greene must have been clinging to it tenaciously when it swung and caught against the railing, stripping off the three end stones. If the whole necklace had dropped it would have broken up fine, and more than three stones would have returned to us in reply to the advertisements. And in that case, too, the chances against the end stones alone returning, out of all the thirty-six, are too unlikely to be considered. No, the fire-blue necklace never fell to the ground.”
“It certainly didn’t remain on the balcony,” said Kirby. “It would have been discovered there.”
“Quite so,” assented Average Jones. “We’re getting at it by the process of exclusion. The necklace didn’t fall. It didn’t stay. Therefore?”—he looked inquiringly at Mrs. Hale.
“It returned,” she said quickly.