pain, then told him that he must show them where the key of Sir
Roland's safe was--a little safe in the wall in his bedroom. Dick knew
where the key was--Sir Roland keeps it, it seems, in a drawer of his
dressing-table--but he refused to tell, though the man screwed his arm
until he nearly broke it--he strained it badly, and the poor little chap
has it still in a sling. Then, finding that they could do nothing with
him, and that nothing would make him 'peach,' as he says--though he says
they threatened to hit him on the head--one of them pressed something
over his mouth and nose, which seemed to suffocate him. What happened
after that he doesn't know, as he lost consciousness."

"What a brave little boy," my beautiful companion exclaimed in a tone of
admiration. "Did he say at all what the men were like?"

"He didn't catch even a glimpse of their faces, they pounced on him so
quickly. But he says that both wore hunting kit, and he thinks both were
tall. One wore pink."

"It was a carefully planned affair, anyway," Mrs. Stapleton said
thoughtfully, as I refilled her glass with Pol Roger. "What was the
actual value of the things stolen?"

"Sir Roland puts it at twelve or fourteen thousand pounds, roughly. You
see, he had a lot of jewellery that had belonged to Lady Challoner and
that would have been Miss Challoner's; most of that was stolen. It
should have been in the safe, of course, but Sir Roland had taken it out
the week before, intending to send it all to London to be thoroughly
overhauled and cleaned--he was going to give it to Dulcie--to Miss
Challoner on her twenty-first birthday; she comes of age next month, you
know. It was in one of the drawers that the thieves unlocked, and they