wanted to meet a titled lady. During a bridge game after dinner, the clasp of Mrs Betts' pearl pendant necklace broke. She laid it down on a small table and forgot to take it upstairs. The next morning, the necklace was still there but the pearl itself had gone. Aside from the Kingston Bruces, the Betts, Lady Laura, and St Vincent, the only other guest was Mr Rennie, paying court to Miss Kingston Bruce. Her father does not like him as he is a socialist. No one has been allowed to leave the house since the pearl was discovered to be missing, except for the daughter when she went to the Blunts. They search the house as part of their investigations. Tommy uses his new camera whilst Tuppence tactfully questions the servants. They overhear a scrap of conversation between Mrs Kingston Bruce and her daughter about someone hiding a teaspoon in their muff. Later on, Tuppence ferrets out of Lady Laura's French maid, Elise, that her employer is something of a kleptomaniac, and five times in the past items have gone missing when she has been staying at friends' houses. They search Lady Laura's bedroom and bathroom, momentarily getting stuck in the latter room when Elise cannot open the door. Tommy takes pictures in the bedroom with Elise's assistance and then quietly tells Tuppence that he has an idea and has to go out to pursue it. In the meantime, she is not to let Lady Laura out of the house. Tommy returns with Inspector Marriot of Scotland Yard. They go straight back to the bathroom and cut the cake of soap in half. Inside it is the pearl. The reason Elise could not open the door was that she had soap on her hands after depositing the pearl there. Tommy's photographs included one of the maid and she handled one of the glass slides, leaving her fingerprints. Scotland Yard has identified her from their records as a missing criminal and arrested her. Being the maid of a lady suspected of kleptomania was the best cover she could have had. The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger Tuppence receives a package with an engraved silver cigarette case, which she had bought for General Francis Haviland whom she drove in the First World War. It is her wedding gift to him. Tommy's disparaging remarks about the General are interrupted by the arrival