For a moment I see-sawed up and down the river bank, remembering I had left my handbag at the Queen's, but, infinitely more important, that my knapsack with money belt and diary were in the keeping of a peripatetic acquaintance somewhere along the crowded piers downstream.

" Ned took a handbag from under the burlap.

The dinner passed off without the odd little professor showing up, although Sallie said it was nothing unusual for him, and that he was liable to appear at any time, carrying his little white hand-net, and a small handbag in which he claimed to keep the trophies of the chase that had been run down during his last campaign.

She even laughed at herself for a fool as she recalled the tell-tale handbag on the porch and the damning presence of a Bazelhurst lantern in the hallway.

When I got down here, I helped the local police to go through everythingwe even searched the linings of his clothing and ripped his one handbag to pieces.