"We have to stop the Inquest!" I gasped, as Isabel hurtled up the stairs.

"The what?" she asked, in as much of a flap as I was.

"Let me get changed! Get on the telephone to Sussex Police Station. Or Scotland Yard. Or anyone who might be able to tell us where the Inquest is being held!" I ordered, hurrying to the attic to grab the red and cream dress out of my suitcase. I heard Isabel's frantic voice on the telephone as I pulled on the dress, and put a brown pair of comfy shoes on under it.

"Allie!" Isabel shouted. "Deputy Inspector Fisher!"

I ran down the stairs two at a time, grabbing the phone from my sister.

"Fisher!" I gasped. "How long is it until the Inquest starts?"

"Two hours, Miss Winter" Fisher's voice came down the telephone.

"How long till it finishes?" I asked.

"It could be anything from forty minutes to two hours in length" Fisher told me. "But have you really solved it?" he added worriedly.

"Why do you all always say that?" I grumbled. "Of course I have!"

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you work it out?" Fisher asked

"Insomnia" I replied simply. "In the end, it all came down to insomnia."

"You're hopeless" Fisher groaned.

"I'm sorry!" I protested. "Look, you need to delay the Inquest as long as possible. Get Newham and Dr. Scott. Arthman'll help you as well, I have no doubt, and Evangelyn might help too if you tell her I'm clearing her father's name. Make sure the Inquest doesn't end until I get there."

"Alright, Miss Winter. Barnes is going to hate us, but we won't let you down" Fisher replied.

"Miss Dalton to you!" I replied sternly. "Good luck.

"Be quick. We're in the town hall in Merryweather Village" Fisher replied, putting the phone down. I did the same and turned to Isabel.

"I need you to do something for me" I told her,  hurrying into the kitchen and grabbing a pencil and paper.

"Go up to Kensington and sell the two silk dresses in my suitcase. I never wore them" I said, scribbling on the paper. "Sell the purple muslin as well. It'll fetch a good price, and I never wore that either. Once you've done that, take the money and go to this address. Buy all the jewellery you can see, haggle the prices down if they're too high. I know you can manage that. Once you've done that, bring them all back here and don't take your eyes off them."

Isabel raised her eyebrows.

"What 'jewellery' am I looking for, exactly?" she asked.

"I don't know how much there'll be, because I don't know how much has actually been taken" I replied. "But I know it'll be there, unless  someone's beaten us to it."

"What happens if there's too much?" Isabel asked. I sighed.

"Make sure you get any diamond rings, ruby bracelets, emerald earrings, bracelets or necklaces, and  diamond necklaces you see. The rest can wait."

"Where are you going?" Isabel asked.

"To catch the fastest train I can to Sussex!" I replied, running out the door. Isabel rolled her eyes. Sometimes, she really wondered about her little sister.

I finally reached Sussex station two and a half hours  later. After sneakily stealing someone else's cart, I ordered the driver to take me to Merryweather Village, and bribed him with a half-crown if he did it in under half an hour. As the promise of a half crown spurred the driver on, I hung tightly onto my seat as the cart sped down the little lanes.

Wondering if a half crown was too much of a bribe, I flicked it up to him fifteen minutes later as I dismounted slightly dizzily from the cart, running across the road to Merryweather Village Hall. Stopping at the door, I took a deep breath, composing myself. I needed as much dignity as I could muster.

I walked through the doors-straight into the Inquest itself. I had expected this, as the village hall wasn't really very big. Everyone turned to look at me-the judge, sitting up in a big high chair, and all of the people sitting in the rows of chairs as well. I saw Fisher sigh, his shouders sagging with relief. He looked a little hot under the collar, as did Newham and Arthman. I figured I had arrived in the nick of time. Barnes was standing up in the witness box, and he groaned aloud when he saw who I was.

"You again?" he asked. "Can't you just mind your own buisness?"

"I'm making sure you don't make a very costly mistake, Chief Inspector" I reasoned. "Because I believe you are."

"Who are you, then?" the judge asked sternly. I hesitated, unsure which name to give, but Barnes jumped in.

"She's Alianna Winter, sire, the young girl I ordered to pose as a private detective while I solved the thefts" he told the judge.

"I see. Well, we've all heard that story accounted for and verified, and we have already passed that slight deception off as acceptable" the judge said curtly. I imagined it had been a long and confusing story.

"Is this true, Miss Winter?"he asked me, and I nodded.

"Yes, sire. Every word."

"And what, may I ask, do you have to contribute?"

I smiled.

"I'm going to explain. Everything."

"Everything?" the judge queried. I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yes."

"Miss Winter, I'm afraid I have to insist you stand down!" Barnes snapped. "You can't argue with the fact that the sapphires were found in Savoy's room!"

I let out a huge groan of despair, putting my hands over my face and screwing it up.

"Please stop being dumb!" I begged. "I even proved it to you that he was innocent!" Calming myself, I took another deep breath in and tried to think of a way to explain my thought processes.

"Miss WInter!" Newham called. "I think that was a little mean..."

"Not now, Lieutenant!" I sighed, before turning back to Barnes, who was looking a mixture of confused, hurt, and enraged bull. "Right. I'm pretty sure you and Fisher searched the whole of the country club top to bottom when those sapphires went missing. You even went through the plumbing, for God's sake! How could an everyday maid find them when you couldn't?" I turned to said maid, a prim older woman, looking at me with the same slightly-confused-but-also-slightly-awed-and-really-rather-interested expression that hung on every face in the room.

"No offense meant" I added, and she broke a smile as I turned back to Barnes.

"Tell me how" he sighed, and I could see in his eyes he knew I was right. I smiled kindly at him.

"Because they were put there after you searched. Returned, more like, on the night of the ball, in a fashion so as to throw suspicion on Mr. Savoy. This was what I proved to you by dropping them off the banister. They were returned because they were fake, and couldn't be sold."

"I rather liked them, although they were fakes" Davinia put in. I turned to her and smiled.

"They were very good fakes" I said. "I wouldn't have known the difference until I'd dropped them off some high place."

A ripple of amusement ran through the crowd. Barnes sighed.

"I am never hiring you again, Miss Winter. That's twice you've humiliated me at my own job. But do go on" he smiled, patting me on the shoulder, all earlier anger lost, and sat down next to Fisher. I looked up at the judge.

"Do you mind?" I asked him. "I know this isn't how Inquests normally go, but..."

"Please, go ahead" the judge replied. "I'm perfectly facinated myself."

I hid a smile, and took another deep breath.

"Right" I sighed, turning to the assembled people. "I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to start here, so I'll just dive in as best I can, and try not to forget anything. Deal?"

A murmur of agreement went around the room. I realized I had the full attention of everyone in it. Rubbing my fingers together, I began my explanation.

"The first thing I heard about this case was the three impossible thefts. A diamond ring, an emerald set, and a ruby bracelet. When I arrived, the case of the emerald set unravelled itself almost instantly, and that proved to me that the rest were actually possible too. You see, the emerald set in question was being kept in the safe box courtesy of the club, a safe box which, although very secure, is also very portable."

"So?" the judge asked. I sighed, as blind elephants sprang to mind once again.

"So, all the thief had to do was pick the safe-box out of the cubby-hole, and replace it with one from another room!" I explained. "Am I wrong in saying, Mr. Savoy, that you experinced a bit of difficulty getting into your safe the day you discovered the emeralds missing?"

"I did" Savoy replied amazedly. "Had to get one of the bell-boys to open it. That was when we realized that the set was missing."

"You struggled because it was a different safe" I told him. "The real safe was somewhere else, getting broken into."

"Ah" Savoy mused.

"It was the same with the sapphires, I assume?" Barnes asked. I nodded, pleased he had finally arrived on the same wavelength as me.

"Now, onto the diamond ring" I said, moving swiftly on. "This one caused a few more difficulties, I have to admit. It was only when I realized that two waiters had come in to clear the Harts' main courses, and that one of the waiters had disappeared shortly after, that I understood." I looked again at Barnes, and at Newham. "You two had it the wrong way around. It wasn't Saunders who had stolen the ring, but rather the other man did, using a sneaky bit of sleight of hand."

"So where is this Saunders now?" the judge asked. I bit my lip.

"I don't know" I replied. "That was the one thing I decided to leave to the police. Hopefully he isn't face down in a ditch somewhere."

There was a general intake of breath around the room, as everyone considered Saunders's possible fate.

"In fact" I called over the chatter which had broken out. "There was the unmistakable sense of  theatricality in all of these thefts. I admit I myself was thrown a little by my own deductions, as since the cases of the emerald set and the sapphire necklace came so easily solved, I assumed they were a different kind of theft to  the other two, almost to the point when I believed there were two different thieves. But in fact, there really was only one. One man with a sense of the theatrical and the nerves of steel. Someone with the skill to pretend to drop hot soup all over an elderly guest, then use his lightning quick fingers to unclip her ruby bracelet from around her wrist as he pretends, crying apologies for the world to hear, to clean her up. That is a skill you only learn in the circus, is it not, Mr. Stephenson?"

I had been stalking down the centre aisle as I had been speaking, and now I turned to the butler, who paled. 

"You've got it wrong!" he squeaked,  his calm, cool manner apparently shattered. "How could it have been me?"

"Shall I explain?" I asked. Not waiting for an answer, I ploughed on. "I got chatting with your brother on my way back to Paddington. Unknowingly, he provided me with the three things I needed to solve the whole case. The fact that the luggage is always taken to the back door, both of your histories in the circus and his own insomnia. Let me explain. Your brother Edward complained to me that the powders he was taking for his insomnia seemed to be messing with his head, getting him mixing up dates, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn't getting it wrong, he was just behind a day. You see, you'd been looking at the bookings register, and you'd been finding out things about all these people, hadn't you? You'd found pictures of them wearing certain pieces of jewellery, and bribed a London forger to make copies. When you had the copies, on the nights before these set people were meant to arrive, you overdosed your own brother with his own sleeping powders and took his place as a cart driver. There are so many butlers in this place, you'd hardly be missed for a few hours every now and then. So, the guests arrive, and you drive the cart around to the back of the house with the fakes in your pocket, then switch the fakes with the real jewels as you unload the luggage. That was why you could afford to take so many risks. The jewels you were slowly whisking from under all of our noses were not the real thing, and could be shattered and disposed of quickly, while the real jewels had already been sent back to London with those lovely blue stamps of yours as an obvious marker."

"Where were they sent?" Arthman asked. Stephenson was still staring at me, white as a sheet, as I carried on.

"They were sent to a small odds and ends shop in Victoria Grove, called Stephenson's Ends" I replied. "The owner is Stephenson's father. I don't know whether he knew the jewels had been stolen, but I'll bet that's where they are."

"Can you prove any of this?" the judge asked. I sighed, slowing down the pace a little. I  had been rattling along at quite a speed earlier. 

"Evangelyn, your diamond necklace, if you don't mind" I ordered quietly, holding out a hand. Shaking, Evangelyn unclipped the neckace from around her neck and handed it to me.

"Trivia time!" I smiled mischeviously. "Tell me something interesting about diamonds!"

"They don't break!" Newham called up.

"You could have been a bit more imaginative!" I complained, and he flashed me a wicked smile. "Evangelyn, if this turns out I'm wrong, I'm terribly sorry" I said over my shoulder, as I climbed up to the witness box, the platform of which stood about half a metre off the floor. Taking a deep breath, I threw the diamond neckalce down with all my strength, shielding my eyes as it hit the floor.

Hit  the floor and shattered. 

The pieces flew up at me, and I was grateful I  had shielded my face, since some  of  them looked rather sharp.

"Well I'll be blown" the judge murmured.

Barnes jumped up.

"James Stephenson, I'm arresting you for the numerous thefts of priceless jewellery" he snapped. "Anything you say will be taken down and could be used against you. Jenkins!" 

I watched Stephenson's face from the witness stand as he was handcuffed. It didn't seem right. There was no frustration, or malice, or annoyance. Just confusion, and sadness. He looked like he'd been punched in the gut, and definitely didn't look like the thief I knew. The light caught off his metal watch strap as he was led away down the aisle.

And that was when I realized my mistake.

"Wait!" I  yelled, leaping from the witness box, hopping over the shattered pieces of necklace and running after them. "I've got it wrong!"

Barnes turned around again.

"You've got it wrong?" he asked in amazement. I nodded.

"Well, no, not exactly, Mostly, I got it right, But then I got it wrong, but I was actually right, just wrong" I told him, and I saw the Chief Inspector's brain practically implode as he tried to work out what I'd just told him.

"You're a clever, clever thief, you are" I murmured, coming up right in Stephenson's face. Clever, clever, clever,clever, clever, clever, clever thief, but not quite as clever as you thought you were."

I gave Stephenson a very Violetta Dalton-ish glare. He shrank back.

"What's my address?" I asked him.

"15A...Praed Street, Paddington" he replied cautiously.

I let out a huge sigh and began to laugh. Dropping my head onto his chest, I  continued to laugh for at least another two minutes, mainly at myself, for not noticing it sooner.

"I'm so sorry, Chief Inspector" I smiled, hugging the handcuffed man around the waist. "But I think we've had a bit of twin trickery played on us, haven't we, Edward?" I asked the man I was hugging, who gasped in relief, almost falling over, and I had to hold him up as he staggered. 

"Only Edward could know my address, since I gave it to him this morning" I explained. "There was no way James could have been driving me home, otherwise he would never have told me the clues I needed to solve the case. If I'm not wrong, Edward, I believe James dared you to swap places with him at the Inquest, knowing if I turned up and accused the man I thought was James Stephenson, I would actually be accusing his innocent brother. The real thief is over there." I pointed to the other twin, the one in the cab driver's uniform. He scowled hideously at the whole room.

"Catch me" he spat, making a break for the door. I pulled Edward out of the way as he charged past us. About eight policemen, Fisher, Newham and Arthman gave chase. I made sure Edward was released, then followed the men out, desperate to see how this one ended. I arrived just in time to see the real, and now significantly muddier, James Stephenson being ushered into the police cart, with Fisher, Newham and Arthman returning back up the steps to the village hall, Newham with rather dirty hands and mud scrapes all down his trousers. I didn't need to be a detective to work ouut how that one came about.

Edward appeared behind me, with most of the room in tow.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked. "Before all the address stuff."

"It was your watch" I smiled, pointing to his left wrist. "Your brother wears his on his right."

"But what about our jewels?" Savoy asked, Evangelyn, the Harts and Catherine Kendel nodding agreement.

"Isabel!" I suddenly gasped. I had forgotten all about her. "Fisher, where's the phone?" 

After having to re-dial twice because of my haste, I finally got through to Praed Street.

"Izzy!" I almost shouted down the phone. "Have you got..."

"Calm yourself down, Allie!" Isabel said soothingly. "You were bang on all right. I did exactly as you asked, and I'm sitting staring at exactly what you told me would be there as we speak. Everything go well at your end?"

"Just fantastically" I beamed. "I'm afraid we're going to have rather a lot of visitors when I get home. Don't bother with making anything, those jewels are far more important."

"Right-ho" Isabel replied. "See you soon."

I put the phone down. 

"That saved us a whole lot of trouble" I sighed, turning to the rest of the group, who were still watchig me intently.

"The jewels are at my house" I explained. "I sent my sister Isabel off to find them while I came up here. I think they're all there, since that shop really hasn't sold anything for years. If you want proof they were there, Barnes, check the stock list. Or, just go in on the pretence of buying jewels and see what he says. Now then" I sighed. "I'm afraid we've got a bit of a journey ahead of us. We can't leave Isabel stranded in the kitchen for too long. Would everyone be alright with a quick trip to Paddington?

There was a general nodding and murmuring of consent, and we all headed outside to the waiting carts. Since the one I had got from the station had, annoyingly, returned to the station, I climbed into one of the rather smart-looking country club cart on orders from Mr. Savoy, and the five of us, myself, Newham, Evangelyn, Davinia, and Mr. Savoy, were the first to arrive at Sussex station. 

Newham approached me quietly,as the rest of the group were buying tickets. Mine was a return, so I didn't need to bother.

"Well done" he muttered.

"Thank you" I replied, a little stiffly. "It nearly wasn't, though."

"Wasn't what?" the lieutenant asked.

"Well done" I replied. "I nearly got it wrong. I should have realized when I first picked on him. The James Stephenson I knew would  have kept a a straight face the whole time."

"Why are you beating