"Both," was the unsmiling answer. "Will you give me your word there are no more pins on you?"
"I will give you my word there is only this one, and you are welcome to it." Iris took a pin from a loop of ribbon that adorned her petticoat ruffle, "but I must ask for one to replace it. I'm a shockingly careless mortal, and I fully meant to sew that bow on, but I didn't."
Flossie stared at her hard, but Iris didn't quiver an eyelash of fear or apprehension, and the other allowed her to dress herself again.
"That is all," Flossie said, shortly, as once more Iris was in full costume. "We will go now."
They re-entered the car, which was still at the door, and started back the way they had come.
"The murder mystery is bad enough," said Hughes, "but this disappearance of Miss Clyde is also alarming. There is deep deviltry going on, and since Winston Bannard is in custody it can't be assumed that he had any hand in the matter."
"Unless Iris is doing something for Win," suggested Miss Darrel.
"They may be working in collusion----" began Hughes, but Mr. Chapin interrupted. "Don't use such an expression! Working in collusion implies wrong-doing. If those two, or either of them, should be hunting the hidden jewels, they have a perfect right to do so. The jewels belong to them--if they can find them."
"Iris Clyde isn't on any jewel hunt," declared Hughes, when, at that very moment, in at the door came Iris herself.
Her hair was decidedly tumbled, and her pretty lingerie waist was rumpled, but otherwise she looked trim and tidy.
But angry! Her eyes blazed as she cried, "Oh, I am so glad you men are here! I've had such an experience! Mr. Hughes, you must look up the people who kidnapped me--kidnapped me, in broad daylight! At my own side door! It seems to me as incredible as it must seem to you!"
"There, there," said Lucille, trying to calm the excited girl, "have you had your dinner?"
"No, and I don't want any. Listen, everybody, while I tell you about it."
They listened, breathlessly and absorbedly, while Iris told every detail of her adventure.
"And then," she wound up, "after Flossie had searched me as thoroughly as a police matron might have done, she allowed me to put on my things again, and we came back just as we went. I mean, I was put into the car with her, it was a little coupé affair, you know, and the same man drove it. We had the shades up part of the time, but as we made a turn she pulled them down, and as we neared this house, she put the shawl over my head again. It was a nice, white, woolly shawl, and smelt faintly of violet. Well, when we got to the bend of the--road below here, they asked me to get out and walk the rest of the way. I did so, gladly enough! I was so relieved to see the house again, that I just _ran_ to it. They scooted, of course, and that's all. Now, Mr. Hughes, catch 'em!"