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 check he has given?" suggested Viner. "Wouldn't that be a good way?"

"We should have to wait nearly a month," answered Mr. Pawle. "And even then it would be difficult—simple though it seems at first sight. There are folk who deal in post-dated checks, remember! This may have been dealt with already—aye, and that diamond too; and the man who has got the proceeds may already be many a mile away. Deep, cunning folk they are who have been in this, Viner. And now—speed is the thing!"

Viner led his guests into his library, and as he placed chairs for them round a centre table, an idea struck him.

"I have a suggestion to make," he said with a shy smile at the legal men. "My aunt, Miss Penkridge, who lives with me, is an unusually sharp, shrewd woman. She has taken vast interest in this affair, and I have kept her posted up in all its details. She was in court just now and heard Mr. Cave's story. If no one has any objection, I should like her to be present at our deliberations—as a mysterious woman has entered into the case, Miss Penkridge may be able to suggest something."

"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "A shrewd woman is worth her weight in gold! By all means bring Miss Penkridge in—she may, as you say, make some suggestion."

Miss Penkridge, fetched into the room and duly introduced, lost no time in making a suggestion of an eminently practical nature—that as all these gentlemen had been cooped up in that stuffy police-court for two or three hours, they would be none the worse