“He was always a wild sort of chap,” said Lord Flanborough, shaking his head darkly. “I understood that he had gone abroad.”
“I suppose there are other Pretherstons,” said the girl; “still it is strange, isn’t it?”
“Do you ever feel…?” began her father awkwardly.
She smiled and laid down her cigarette on the crystal ash-tray.
“He was wholly impossible,” she agreed.
There came a gentle tap at the door and a girl entered.
She was dressed neatly in black, and her prettiness was of a different type to that of her employer (for Lady Moya indulged in the luxury of a secretary). It was a beautiful face with a hint of tragedy in the down-turned lips and, it seemed, a history of wild sorrow in her big grey eyes. Yet of sorrow she knew nothing, and such tragedy as she had met had left her unmoved. Her abundant hair was of a rich brown; the hand that clasped a note-book to her bosom was small and artistic. She was an inch taller than Lady Moya, but because she did not show the same erectness of carriage she seemed shorter.
“Father, you asked me to let you have Miss Tenby this morning,” said Lady Moya with a nod for the girl. “I don’t know whether you will still want her?”
“I am so sorry this dreadful thing has happened, Lord Flanborough,” said the girl in a low voice; “it must be terrible to feel that there is a thief in the house.”
Lord Flanborough smiled good-humoredly.
“We shall recover the pearls, I am certain,” he said; “don’t let it worry you, Miss Tenby--I hope you are comfortable?”
“Very, Lord Flanborough,” said the girl gratefully.
“And the work is not too hard, eh?”
The girl smiled slightly.
“It is nothing--I feel awfully ashamed of myself sometimes. I have been with you a month and have hardly earned my salt.”
“That’s all right,” replied his lordship with great condescension; “you have already been of the greatest assistance to me and we shall find you plenty of other work. I was glad to see you in church on Sunday. The vicar tells me that you are a regular attendant.”
The girl inclined her head, but said nothing. For a while she waited and then at a word of polite dismissal, she left the library.
“Deuced nice girl, that,” said his lordship approvingly.
“She works well and quickly, and she can read French beautifully--I was very fortunate,” said Moya carelessly. “What were we talking about when she came in? Oh, yes--Michael Pretherston. I wonder now--”
The door opened and a footman announced,
“Inspector Pretherston, m’lord.”
“Inspector Michael Pretherston, you silly ass,” corrected the annoyed young man in the doorway.
It was Michael, then!
A little older, a little better-looking, a little more decisive--but Michael, as impetuous and irresponsible as ever.
“He spoilt my entrance, Moya,” he laughed, as he came with rapid strides toward the girl; “how are you after all these years--as pretty as ever, confound you. Ah, Lord Flanborough, you’re wearing well--I read your speech in the House of Lords on the Shipping Bill--a fine speech; did you make it up yourself?”
Moya laughed softly and saved what might have been a most embarrassing situation--for his lordship was framing a dignified protest against the suggestion that he had shared the honours of authorship.
“You are not changed, Michael,” she said, looking at him with undisguised, but none the less, detached admiration; “but what on earth are you doing in the police force?”
“Extraordinary,” murmured Lord Flanborough, and added humorously, “and an anarchist, too.”
“It is a long story,” said Michael. “I really received my promotion in the Special Branch--the Foreign Office Branch--and was transferred to the C.I.D. after we caught the Callam crowd, the Continental confidence tricksters. It is disgraceful that I should be an inspector, isn’t it? But merit tells!” He chuckled again, then of a sudden grew serious. “I’m forgetting I’ve a job to do--what’s the trouble?”
Lord Flanborough explained the object of his urgent call, and a look of disappointment appeared upon Michael Pretherston’s face.
“A miserable little larceny,” he said reproachfully. “I thought at least Moya had been kidnapped. Now, tell me all that happened on the night you lost the pearls.”
Step by step the girl related her movements and the periods at which she had evidence that the pearls were still with her.
“And then you reached your bedroom,” said Michael, “and what happened there? First of all, you took your fur wrap off.”
“Yes,” nodded the girl.
“Were you in a cheerful frame of mind or were you rather cross?”
“Does that matter?” she asked in surprise.
“Everything matters to the patient and systematic officer of the law. Temperamental clues are as interesting and material as any other.”
“Well, if the truth were told,” she confessed, “I was rather cross and very tired.”
“Did you take your cloak off, or did your woman?”
“I took it off myself,” she said after a pause, “and hung it up.”
He asked her a few more questions.
“Now, we will see the sorrowful Martin,” he said, “and let me tell you this, Moya, that if this girl is innocent she has grounds for action against you for false imprisonment.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Lord Flanborough with asperity. “I have a perfect right to detain anybody I think is guilty of theft.”
“You have no more right to lock a woman in a room,” said the other calmly, “than I have to stand you on your head. But that is beside the point. Lead me to the prisoner.”
The prisoner was very pale and very tearful; a middle-aged woman who felt her position acutely and between sobs and wails made an incoherent protest of her innocence.
“I suppose you have searched everywhere?” asked Michael, turning to the girl.
“Everywhere,” she replied emphatically. “I have had every box and every corner of the room examined.”
“Suppose the string of the pearls broke, would they all fall off?”
“No, they would still remain on, because each pearl was secured. Father gave them to me as a birthday present and he was very particular on that point.”
“I would like to bet,” said Michael suddenly, “that those pearls are not out of this room. Show me your wardrobe.”
The girl’s wardrobe occupied the whole of one wall of her dressing-room, and the tearful Martin opened the rosewood doors for his inspection.
“This is your fur cloak, I presume? Did you examine this after the loss?”
“Examine the cloak,” said Lady Moya in surprise, “of course not. What has the cloak to do with the loss? There are no pockets in it.”
“But if I know anything about the fur cloaks that are fashionable this season,” said Michael, wisely, “I should say that there is a possibility that this luxurious garment had a great deal to do with the loss. In fact, my dear Moya,” he said, “your mysterious loss has been duplicated and triplicated this year. In two cases the police were called in, and in the other case the owner had the intelligence to find her lost trinket without assistance.”
He lifted the cloak down very carefully and opened it to show the silk lining and there, caught in one of the long flat hooks, dangled the pearls. The girl uttered an exclamation of delight and slipped them from its fastening.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” said Michael dryly. “That is what has happened, not three times but half-a-dozen times since these flat hooks have been introduced. You take the cloak off in a bad temper, the hook catches the chain, breaks it, you bundle the cloak in your wardrobe and there you have the beginning of a great jewel mystery.”
“I can’t tell you how delighted I am,” said the girl. “Michael, you’re wonderful!”
Michael did not reply. He turned to the frightened waiting-woman with a kindly smile.
“I am so sorry you have been worried about this, Mrs. Martin,” he said, “but when people lose very valuable property they are also inclined to lose their very valuable heads. I am sure Lady Moya is sorry and will make you due compensation for any inconvenience you have been put to.”
The girl stared at him resentfully.
“Of course, I am awfully sorry, Martin,” she said, coldly.
“Oh, my lady,” said the woman eagerly, “I am only too pleased that you have recovered your chain. The worry of it has made me quite ill.”
“You can have a week’s holiday,” said Lord Flanborough, magnificently. “I will get you a free railway ticket to Seahampton,” he added.
“So you see, Mrs. Martin,” said Michael with that bland air of his which scarcely veiled the sarcasm so irritating to his lordship, “your generous employers will leave no stone unturned to minister to your comfort, regardless of expense. And when you are at Seahampton, Mrs. Martin, (I trust you will not lose the return half of your free ticket) you will be allowed to walk up and down the promenade on equal terms with the aristocracy and breathe the ozone which, ordinarily, is created for your betters. You may sit on the free seats and watch the pageant of life step past you and, reflecting upon the generosity of your betters, you may appreciate the good fortune which brought you into hourly contact with the aristocracy of England. And on Sundays, Mrs. Martin, you may go to church where quite a number of the seats are also free and may even share a hymn-book with a Gracious Person who is so vastly above you in social standing that he will never recognize you again, and there, I trust, you will pray with a new fervence that the deliberations of the House of Lords may receive divine inspiration.”