"Not so easy, Miss Clyde. The thing was carefully planned, and carried out with equal care. Did they get the pin?"
"They did not! Now, Mr. Hughes--Mr. Chapin, that pin must have some value. What can it be? To say it's a lucky pin is silly, I think."
"But what else could be its value?" said Chapin, wonderingly. "Let me see it."
"I won't let anybody see it, unless we draw the blinds and lock the doors," said Iris, decidedly. "I tell you there is some value to this pin. Could it be made of radium, or something like that?"
"All right, I will," and Iris locked the doors herself, and drew down the window shades. Then, turning on an electric light, she turned up the hem of her white serge skirt, and began feeling for the pin. And she found it, though the point had come through the material. But the head held it in, and Iris easily extricated it.
"There!" she said, holding it up, "that is the 'valuable pin' Aunt Ursula bequeathed to me. What do you make of it?"
Hughes took it first, and looked at it curiously. "Just a common, ordinary pin," he said, "no radium about that."
"Did you ever see any radium?" asked Iris.
"No; but I've seen common pins all my life, and that's one."
"Of course it is;" and Lucille Darrel's positive statement rather settled the matter.
Mr. Chapin looked at it, but could see nothing unusual about it. It was not bright, like a new pin, yet it was not yellowed with age. It was merely a _pin_, and nothing more could be made of it.
"It's a blind," said Hughes, with conviction. "Those people, whoever they may be, pretend they're after this pin, but really they think you have a real diamond pin left you by your aunt, and they're after that."
"That might be," agreed Chapin. "Did the search indicate anything of the sort, Iris?"
"I can't say. If so, at least, that girl made a big bluff of hunting an ordinary pin. I tried to fool her. I had put a pin of hers in the frill of my blouse, and I kept looking toward it, but furtively, as if eluding her attention. She caught on, and she examined that frill in every plait! She found the pin I had put there, of course, and she took special care of it, though pretending it was of no particular importance. I put one, as if hidden, in my petticoat ruffle, too, and she fairly pounced on that, but she gave me a glance to see if I noticed her satisfaction! Oh, we played our parts, and it was diamond cut diamond, I can tell you. I couldn't help liking her; she's really a nice girl, and she must have been made, or hired, to do what she did. She made me take down my hair, and she brushed it herself, in hope of finding a pin in it! And I did think of hiding it there at first, but I thought it safer where I put it. You see, it couldn't lose out, and there was little likelihood of her thinking to feel in the hem of my skirt."