“I pray your pardon, madam!” he said, stammering as he drew his wits together. “But that ring… May I know where it came from?”
Both husband and wife were looking at him intently now, surprised but not troubled.
“It was come by honestly,” she said, and smiled in mild amusement at his gravity. “It was brought in for sale some years back, and since I liked it, my husband gave it to me.”
“When was this? Believe me, I have good reasons for asking.”
“It was three years back,” said the silversmith readily. “In the summer, but the date…that I can’t be sure of now.”
“But I can,” said his wife, and laughed. “And shame on you for forgetting, for it was my birthday, and that was how I wooed the ring out of you. And my birthday, sir, is the twentieth day of August. Three years I’ve had this pretty thing. The bailiffs wife wanted my husband to copy it for her once, but I wouldn’t have it. This must still be the only one of its kind. Primrose and periwinkle… such soft colours!” She turned her hand in the sun to admire the glow of the enamels. “The other pieces that came with it were sold, long ago. But they were not so fine as this.”
“There were other pieces that came with it?” demanded Nicholas.
“A necklace of polished pebbles,” said the smith, “I remember it now. And a silver bracelet chased with tendrils of pease-or it might have been vetch.”
The ring alone would have been enough; these three together were certainty. The three small items of personal jewellery belonging to Julian Cruce had been brought into this shop for sale on the twentieth of August, three years ago. The first clear echo, and its note was wholly sinister.
“Master silversmith,” said Nicholas, “I had not completed the tale of all I sought. These three things came south, to my certain knowledge, in the keeping of a lady who was bound for Wherwell, but never reached her destination.”
“Do you tell me so?” The smith had paled, and was gazing warily and doubtfully at his visitor. “I bought the things honestly, I’ve done nothing amiss, and know nothing, beyond that some fellow, decent enough to all appearance, brought them in here openly for sale…”
“Oh, no, don’t mistake me! I don’t doubt your good faith, but see, you are the first I have found that even may help me to discover what is become of the lady. Think back, tell me, who was this man who came? What like was he? What age, what style of man? He was not known to you?”
“Never seen before nor since,” said the silversmith, cautiously relieved, but not sure that telling too much might not somehow implicate him in dangerous business. “A man much of my years, fifty he might be. Ordinary enough, plain in his dress, I took him for what he claimed, a servant sent on an errand.”
The woman did better. She was much interested by this time, and saw no reason to fear involvement, and some sympathetic cause to help, insofar as she could. She had a sharper eye for a man than had her husband, and was disposed to approve of Nicholas and desire his goodwill.
“A solid, square-made man he was,” she said, “brown as his leather coat. That was not a hot summer like this, his brown was the everlasting kind that would only yellow a little in winter, the kind that comes with living out of doors year-round-forester or huntsman, perhaps. Brown-bearded, brown-haired but for his crown, he was balding. He had a bold, oaken face on him, and a quick eye. I should never have remembered him so well, but that he was the one who brought my ring. But I tell you what, I fancy he remembered me for a good while. He gave me long enough looks before he left the shop.”
She was used to that, being well aware that she was handsome, and it was one more reason why she had recalled the man so well. Good reason, also, for paying close attention to all she had to say of him.
Nicholas swallowed burning bitterness. It was not the fifty years, nor the beard, nor the bald crown, nor even the weathered hide that identified the man, for Nicholas had never seen Adam Heriet. It was the whole circumstance, possession of the jewellery, the evidence of the date, the fact that the other three had been left in Andover, and in any case Nicholas had seen them for himself, and none of them resembled this description. The fourth man, the devoted servant, the fifty-year-old huntsman and forester, a stout man of his hands, a man Waleran of Meulan would think himself lucky to get… yes, every word Nicholas had heard said of Adam Heriet fitted with what this woman had to say of the man who had sold Julian’s jewels.
“I did question possession,” said the silversmith, still uneasy,‘“seeing they were clearly a lady’s property. I asked how he came by them, and why he was offering them for sale. He said he was simply a servant sent on an errand, his business to do as he was told, and he had too much sense to quibble over it, seeing whoever questioned the orders that man gave might find himself short of his ears, or with a back striped like a tabby cat. I could well believe it, there are many such masters. He was quite easy about it, why should I be less so?”
“Why, indeed!” said Nicholas heavily. “So you bought, and he departed. Did he argue over the price?”
“No, he said his orders were to sell, he was no valuer and was not expected to be. He took what I gave. It was a fair price.”
With room for a fair profit, no doubt, but why not? Silversmiths were not in the business to dole out charity to chance vendors.
“And was that all? He left you so?”
“He was going, when I did call after him, and asked him what was become of the lady who had worn these things, and had she no further use for them, and he turned back in the doorway and looked at me, and said no, for such she had no further use at all, for that this lady who had owned them was dead.”
The hardness of the answer, its cold force, was there in the silversmith’s voice as he repeated it. Remembering had brought it back far more vividly than ever he had dreamed, it shook him as he voiced it. Even more fiercely it stabbed at Nicholas, a knife in the heart, driving the breath out of him. It rang so hideously true, and named Adam Heriet almost beyond doubt. She who had owned them was dead. Ornaments were of no further concern to her.
Out of the chill rage that consumed him he heard the woman, roused now and eager, saying: “No, but that’s not all! For it so chanced I followed the man out when he left, but softly, not to be seen too soon.” Had he given her an appraising look, smiled, flashed an admiring eye, to draw her on a string? No, not if he had anything to hide, no, he would rather have slid away unobtrusively, glad to be rid of his winnings for money. No, she was female, curious, and had time on her hands to spare, she went out to see whatever was to be seen. And what was it she saw? “He slipped along to the left here,” she said, “and there was another man, a young fellow, pressed close against the
