Bebberly Cumble impressively.
"And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me," admitted
Vera, "so I'll do what I ought not to do and tell you."
Mrs. Bebberley Cumble thrust a very pardonable sense of exasperation into
the background of her mind and demanded impatiently:
"What is there in Betsy Mullen's cottage that you are making such a fuss
about?"
"It's hardly fair to say that _I've_ made a fuss about it," said Vera;
"this is the first time I've mentioned the matter, but there's been no
end of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it. It's
rather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and the
police and detectives hunting about everywhere at home and abroad, and
all the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret."
"You don't mean to say it's the Louvre picture, La Something or other,
the woman with the smile, that disappeared about two years ago?"
exclaimed the aunt with rising excitement.
"Oh no, not that," said Vera, "but something quite as important and just
as mysterious--if anything, rather more scandalous."
"Not the Dublin--?"
Vera nodded.
"The whole jolly lot of them."
"In Betsy's cottage? Incredible!"
"Of course Betsy hasn't an idea as to what they are," said Vera; "she
just knows that they are something valuable and that she must keep quiet
about them. I found out quite by accident what they were and how they
came to be there. You see, the people who had them were at their wits'
end to know where to stow them away for safe keeping, and some one who
was motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of the
cottage and thought it would be just the thing.
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