"Oh, Jess! the jewels were in it. I'm so glad."
"Empty!" echoed Peggy, "and nobody knows how it came there?"
"No, we must have been at lunch at the time. None of the servants know anything about the matter, either. It's a real, dark and deep mystery."
"It's all of that, my dear Watson," proclaimed Jimsy, folding his arms and scowling in imitation of a famous detective of fiction. "Why on earth should the thief want to return the wallet? You'd think he'd dodge such a risk of being arrested."
But Peggy had been looking at the wallet which had so amazingly reappeared.
"Why, Jess," she cried, "it's all mud-stained. It looks as if it had been buried somewhere."
"It certainly does," agreed Jimsy, "but even that doesn't give us any more to go on than the theory that the jewels have been buried some place."
"And been dug up again," put in Peggy, quickly.
After some more conversation the group was about to break up, when Jess exclaimed suddenly:
"Oh, by the way, did you hear about Jeff Stokes? No, I see you haven't. Well, he's been appointed wireless operator at Rocky Point."
"Oh, I'm so glad," cried Peggy, impulsively; "that's been his ambition for a long time."
Rocky Point was a projecting neck of land about two miles east of Sandy Bay. It was quite an important signalling station for ships passing up and down the Sound. The position which Jeff Stokes had secured was a lucrative one in a way, and, at any rate, was in direct line of promotion.
The two Bancrofts waited to watch Peggy take the air in her now staunch aeroplane. It was not until she had vanished with a whirr and a whiz that Jimsy thought of starting his own car.
"Gracious," cried Jess, as they sped along, "how I wish that the mystery of those jewels could be cleared up."
As she spoke they were passing by the cottage occupied by Gid Gibbons.
"Oh, look, there's that horrid Fanning Harding and Gid Gibbons's daughter at the gate," cried Jess.
At the same instant as she uttered the exclamation, Hester Gibbons looked up in time to see Jess's gaze concentrated upon her. She whisked about, her skirts swinging as she did so. But she did not turn quickly enough for Jess's sharp eyes not to see that she snatched at something she had been wearing at her throat.