Her diary attested this fact, over and over again. But it gave no hint as to where the hiding-place might be.
Stone pondered long and deeply over the statement that the gems were in some crypt, and, as he thought, a great inspiration came to him.
"Of course!" he said to himself, "it _is_ that! It can be nothing else!"
But he confided his new theory to nobody; he only began to ask more questions.
He quizzed Iris as to her Chicago visit, and wanted a detailed account of every minute she had spent there. Then he asked her more particularly about the house where she was taken in the little motor car.
"Let's try to find it," Stone said, "let's go now."
They started off in a runabout, which Stone drove himself. Knowing that the house might be in Meadville, they went that way.
Iris was unable to verify the route, so they went there on the chance.
"A wild goose chase, probably," Stone conceded, "but we'll make a stab at it. You see, Miss Clyde, I'm getting the thing narrowed down to a few main propositions. There is, first, a master mind at the head of all the mystery. He is the murderer, he is your caller, Pollock, he is William Ashton, he is the man you saw in Chicago, who attacked you that night in Mrs. Pell's room, who kidnapped you that Sunday--in fact, he is the man at the helm. He has underlings, but I do not think they are accomplices or confederates, they are merely hirelings. Now, of course, Pollock is not this man's real name, but we will call him that for identification among ourselves. This Pollock wanted the pin, we'll say, and not only the pin, but the paper, the receipt that was in the Florentine pocket-book, and that was definitely bequeathed to Mr. Bannard. That paper is quite as valuable as the pin, and he did get that."
"Yes, and the pin was just a pin! But we want them both, and therefore we want the man, Pollock."
"This is Meadville, but I don't see any house that could possibly be the one they took me to. It had rather high stone front steps, with brick uprights to them."
They soon went through the little town, but no such peculiarity was to be found.
"Don't give up the ship too easily," said Stone, smiling at Iris' frown of disappointment, "we haven't exhausted our resources yet."