The Professor laid the end of the necklace gently in the palm of his hand and examined them through a horn-rimmed eyeglass.
"They are wonderful," he murmured,--"wonderful! Why--" He turned away a little abruptly.

They had reached the back of the house and a door from the outside had just been opened.

A man had crossed the threshold with a coat over his arm, and was standing now looking at them.
"How extraordinary!" the Professor remarked.

"Is that you, Craig ?" For a moment there was no answer.

The servant was standing in the gloom of an unlit portion of the passage.