“It was my day off,” she said. “Mr. Trasmere said he was going into the country, though I don’t suppose he was. He had said that before, but Walters told me to take no notice. I have never seen Mr. Trasmere,” she said, to Tab’s surprise. “All my orders came through Mr. Walters, and practically I was never inside the house except once, when the cleaning woman did not turn up in the morning and I helped Walters to tidy the master’s sitting-room. I remember that morning because I found a little black lid—well it was hardly a lid, I have got it here if you would like to see it. I have often wondered what it was for.”
“Lid,” said Tab. “What kind of a lid?”
“It was like the lid of a small pillbox,” explained the woman, “about the size of a threepenny piece. I picked it up and asked Mr. Walters what it was for, and he said he didn’t know. It was on the floor near the table and I brought it home, meaning to ask my husband what it was.”
She went out of the room and returned with the “lid” which proved, on examination, to be a celluloid cap such as typists use to cover their keys.
“Had Mr. Trasmere a typewriter?”
“No, sir,” she answered, shaking her head, “not so far as I know. I have never seen one. As I say, I have only been that once into the house. The kitchen is built away from the living rooms, although it is connected; Mr. Trasmere gave strict orders that I was to keep to my kitchen.”
Tab looked at the little cap which he held between his finger and thumb. It was undoubtedly part of a typist’s equipment, and yet Mr. Trasmere had never employed a typist. He always wrote to Rex in his own hand.
“Are you sure nobody came during the day to take your master’s correspondence?” he asked.
“No, I am perfectly sure Mr. Walters would have told me. He used to complain how dull it was because nobody came to the house at all and he was rather partial to young women, so I am sure I should have heard. Have they found Mr. Walters? I’m certain he didn’t do it.”
Tab satisfied her on that point.
“Do you know the Greens?” he asked, remembering just as he was on the point of leaving the house, the witnesses to the old man’s will.
“No, sir, not really,” she said. “Mrs. Green was cook before me and I saw her once, the day I came, and Mr. Green too. They were a very nice couple and I don’t think the master treated them very well.”
“Where are they now?”
“I don’t know, sir,” she said. “I did hear that they had gone to Australia. They were middle-aged people, but very strong and healthy and Mr. Green was always talking about going to Australia where he was born and settling down there.”
“Did Green or his wife have any hard feelings against Mr. Trasmere?”
She hesitated.
“Well, they naturally felt sore because they had been accused of thieving, and Mr. Green seemed to feel the disgrace terribly, especially when the master had their boxes searched because he had lost some valuable silver and a gold watch.”
This was news to Tab. He had heard of the food pilfering, but he had not heard of the other losses.
She could tell him very little more, except that Green had acted as a sort of butler.
“Was Walters there at the time?” asked Tab.
“Yes, sir; he was Mr. Trasmere’s valet. After Mr. Green went Mr. Walters was butler and valet, too.”
Tab went straight to the office to write the story up to date, but he knew that it was a waste of labour, since some news was certain to come in before nightfall.
The news editor was at his desk when he pushed open the big swing doors and came into the news room to report.
“These front page crimes always come together in shoals,” complained the news editor bitterly. “I have another very good story—”
“Well, give it to a good story writer,” said Tab. “This case is going to occupy not only my time, but the time of half-a-dozen men very fully indeed. What is the new sensation?” he asked sarcastically.
“An actress has lost her jewels, which does not sound tremendously exciting,” said the news editor, fishing for two slips of paper on which he had made a rough note of the case, “but you needn’t bother about that. I’ll put another man on the story as soon as I can get one.”
“Who is the actress?”
“Ursula Ardfern,” replied the editor, and Tab’s jaw dropped.
VIII
“Ursula Ardfern! She is not the kind of person who would mislay her jewels for the sake of a few lines of advertising,” he said. “Where did she lose them?”
“It is rather a curious story,” said the editor, leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. “She went into a post office on Saturday morning on her way to the theatre for the matinee, bought some stamps putting the jewel-case down on the counter by her side. When she looked round the case was gone. It happened so suddenly and in such a surprisingly short space of time that she could not believe her eyes and did not even complain to the Post Office officials. Her own story is, that she thought she must be suffering from some kind of delusion and that she had not brought the jewel-case out at all. She went back to her suite at the Central Hotel and searched every room. By the time she was through, it was near the hour for her matinee, and she hurried down to the theatre—anyway,
