“I found it.”
It was lame and unconvincing, and he knew it.
She repeated the question.
“I am not prepared to tell you,” he said calmly. “You think I stole it, I suppose? You probably imagine that I am a burglar?”
He smiled, but the lips that curved in laughter were hard.
“I can see that in your eyes,” he went on. “You explain my absence from home, my retirement from the Foreign Office, by the fact that I have taken up a more lucrative profession.”
He laughed aloud.
“Well, I have,” he said. “It is not exactly burglary. I assure you,” he went on with mock solemnity, “that I have never burgled a safe in my life. I give you my word of honour that I have never stolen a single article of any—” He stopped himself—he might say too much.
But Edith grasped at the straw he offered her.
“Oh, you do mean that, don’t you?” she said eagerly, and laid her two hands on his breast. “You really mean it? I know it is stupid of me, foolish and horribly disloyal—common of me, anything you like, to suspect you of so awful a thing, but it did seem—it did, didn’t it?”
“It did,” he agreed gravely.
“Won’t you tell me how it came into your possession?” she pleaded.
“I tell you I found it—that is true. I had no intention—” He stopped again. “It was—I picked it up in the road, in a country lane.”
“But weren’t you awfully surprised to find it, and didn’t you tell the police?”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I was not surprised, and I did not tell the police. I intended restoring it, because, after all, jewels are of no value to me, are they?”
“I don’t understand you, Gilbert.” She shook her head, a little bewildered. “Nothing is of any use except what belongs to you, is it?”
“That depends,” he said calmly. “But in this particular case I assure you that I brought this home tonight with the intention of putting it into a small box and addressing it to the Chief Commissioner of Police. You may believe that or not. That is why I thought it so extraordinary when you were talking at dinner that your mother should have lost a necklace, and that I should have found one.”
They stood looking at one another, he weighing the necklace on the palm of his hand, tossing it up and down mechanically.
“What are we going to do with it now?” she asked. She was in a quandary. “I hardly know how to advise.” She hesitated. “Suppose you carry out your present intention and send it to the police.
“Oh!” she remembered with a little move of dismay, “I have practically stolen three hundred pounds.”
“Three hundred pounds!”
He looked at the jewel.
“It’s worth more than three hundred pounds.”
In a few words she explained how the jewel came to be lost, and how it came to be deposited in the hands of Warrell’s.
“I’m glad to hear that your mother is the culprit. I was afraid you’d been gambling.”
“Would that worry you?” she asked quickly.
“A little,” he said; “it’s enough for one member of a family to gamble.”
“Do you gamble very much, Gilbert?” she asked seriously.
“A little,” he said.
“Not a little,” she corrected. “Stock Exchange business is gambling.”
“I am trying to make money for you,” he said brusquely.
It was the most brutal thing he had said to her in her short period of married life, and he saw he had hurt her.
“I am sorry,” he said gently. “I know I am a brute, but I did not mean to hurt you. I was just protesting in my heart against the unfairness of things. Will you take this, or shall I?”
“I will take it,” she said. “But won’t you tell the police where you found it? Possibly they might find the proceeds of other robberies nearby.”
“I think not,” he replied with a little smile. “I have no desire to incur the anger of this particular gang. I am satisfied in my mind that it is one of the most powerful and one of the most unscrupulous in existence. It is nearly half-past ten,” he said; “I must fly.”
He held out his hand, and she took it. She held it for a moment longer than was her wont.
“Goodbye,” she said. “Good luck, whatever your business may be.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She went slowly back to her guests. It did not make the position any easier to understand. She believed her husband, and yet there was a certain reservation in what he had told her, a reservation which said as plainly as his guarded words could tell that there was much more he could have said had he been inclined.
She did not doubt his word when he told her that he had never stolen from—from whom was he going to say? She was more determined than ever to solve this mystery, and after her guests had gone she was busily engaged in writing letters. She was hardly in bed that night before she heard his foot on the stairs and listened.
He knocked at her door as he passed.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night,” she replied.
She heard his door close gently, and she waited for half an hour until she heard the click of his electric switch which told her that he was in bed, and that his light was extinguished.
Then she stole softly out of bed, wrapped her dressing-gown round her, and went softly down the stairs. Perhaps his coat was hanging in the hall.
It was a wild, fantastic idea of hers that he might possibly have brought some further evidence that would help her in her search for the truth, but the pockets were empty.
She felt something wet upon the sleeve, and gathered that it was raining. She went back to her room, closed the door noiselessly, and went to the window to look out into the street. It was a fine morning, and the streets were dry. She saw her hands. They were smeared with blood!
She ran down the stairs again and turned
