Charles Norris Williamson - British Murder Mysteries – 10 Novels in One Volume

How she wished with all her anxious, troubled heart that she knew how to save him to-night!

It had been very wrong to buy a stolen diamond, but he had done it from no mercenary motives, for he had given it to her. She supposed that he had loved the beautiful thing, and felt when it was offered to him that he could not bear to let it go.... Perhaps the Countess de Santiago had stolen it on the Monarchic ! That might be a cruel thought, but Annesley could not help having it, for it would explain many things.

Besides, it would help to exonerate Knight. He was very chivalrous where women were concerned, and he would have felt bound to protect his old friend. At all events, he could not have given her up to justice, and very likely she had been in debt and needed money. She had wonderful clothes, and must be extravagant.

Yes, the more Annesley dwelt on the idea the more convinced she became that Madalena de Santiago had stolen the blue diamond, and perhaps all the other things on the Monarchic , while pretending to have a vision in her crystal of the thief, and of the way the jewel had been smuggled off the ship. Then the Countess had been angry with Knight, and had tried to have him suspected, even of being mixed up in the theft—though that last idea seemed too far-fetched.

"How hateful, how mean of her!" Annesley thought, ashamed because it was so easy to believe bad things of the Countess, and to pile up one upon another. "Probably she put it into Constance's head to suggest having Mr. Ruthven Smith asked. And then she put it into his head to—to——"

The girl stopped short, appalled. What had been put into the jewel expert's head? What precisely had he come to Valley House to do?

"He has come to find the blue diamond!" the answer flashed into her brain.

Madalena de Santiago's eyes were as piercing as they were beautiful. She might have noticed the fine gold chain which her "pal's" wife wore always round her neck. She might have guessed that the ring with the blue diamond was hidden at the end of the chain; yet she could not know for certain , because Knight would never have told her that.

Therefore it followed that neither could Ruthven Smith know for certain. He meant to find out, and if he did find out, Knight would be punished far more severely than he deserved for buying a thing illegally come by.

"I will save him again," Annesley resolved.

But how? What might she expect to happen? And whatever it was, how could she prevent it happening?

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Picture after picture grew and faded in her mind. She saw policemen coming to the house; she saw Ruthven Smith demanding that she and Knight be searched, and arrested if the diamond were found.

It might be difficult to prove that they had had nothing to do with the theft, especially as Knight had been on board the Monarchic . He must have travelled under his own name then, the name that he had not let her see when he wrote it in the register after the wedding. If Ruthven Smith knew about the Monarchic and the change of name, he might make things very unpleasant for Knight. And what must he himself be thinking at this moment as he peered through his eyeglasses?

Annesley had always told herself that Ruthven Smith looked like a schoolmaster. He looked more than ever like one to-night—a very severe schoolmaster, planning to punish a rebellious pupil.

"But he can't have accepted our invitation, and have come to this house to make a scene and a scandal before everybody," she tried to reassure her troubled heart. "Still, he wouldn't look like that if he didn't believe that I'm wearing the diamond, and if he did not mean to do something about it."

It was a terrifying prospect for Annesley, and suddenly, with a shock of certainty, she told herself that Ruthven Smith would not give her time, if he could help it, to get rid of the ring and conceal it somewhere else. "He'll think of an excuse after dinner to make me show what I have on my chain, or perhaps he has thought of the excuse already!"

It seemed to the girl that the room had become bitterly cold. She shivered slightly. "I must take off the ring and put something else on the chain when we go away and leave the men," she decided.

But no! Even then it might be too late. Ruthven Smith neither smoked nor drank. Very likely he would follow the ladies to the drawing room without giving her the chance of cheating him. If she were to save Knight from trouble she must do the thing she had to do at once.

That thing was to unfasten the clasp of the chain, slip off the ring with the blue diamond, substitute another ring, fasten the chain again and replace it inside her dress, all without letting Ruthven Smith across the table, or her neighbours, suspect what was being done.

Her plate was whisked away at that moment, and leaning back in her chair she seized the opportunity of looking at her hands. Brain and heart were throbbing so fast that she could not remember, without counting, what rings she had put on.

Knight had tried to console her for the loss she'd suffered through the burglary a fortnight before by making her a present of half a dozen new rings. Poor Knight! How anxious he always was to give her pleasure, no matter at what expense! He had such good taste in choosing jewellery, too, that one might almost fancy him as great an expert as Ruthven Smith.

But he had laughed when she said this to him, protesting that he was a "rank amateur."

The new rings were all beautiful, each unique in its way. The big white diamond of her engagement ring was the least original of her possessions. To-night, in addition to that and her wedding ring, she wore on her left hand a grayish star sapphire, of oval shape, curiously set with four small diamonds, white ones at top and bottom, pale pink and yellow at the sides. This ring was rather large for her, and as she wore it above the engagement ring, the stones easily slipped round toward the palm.

The dark blue scarab on her right hand Ruthven might have observed; but she was hopeful that the star sapphire had escaped his notice.

She took it off and laid it in her lap, ready.

Her dress of white charmeuse, embroidered with violets, was fastened in front under a folded and crossed fichu of "shadow" lace and a bunch of real violets held on by an old-fashioned brooch. Bending forward, she played at eating Punch à la Romaine, while with her left hand she contrived to undo three or four hooks from their delicately worked eyelets. Then, slipping two fingers into the aperture, she tore open her lace underbodice.

This accomplished, she felt the ring of the blue diamond; but she dared not break the chain, as she could easily have done. If Ruthven Smith were planning some trick by which to obtain a glimpse of ring and chain, the latter must be intact.

Pinching the chain between thumb and finger patiently, persistently, and very cautiously, she pulled it along until she touched the tiny clasp. As she did this she glanced down at the lace of her fichu now and then to make sure that she did not draw the thin line of gold so tightly across her neck that it became visible in moving.

At last she had the clasp in her hand. Pressed upon sharply, it opened, and the ring with the blue diamond fell into her palm. She pushed it inside her frock as far down as her fingers would reach and slid the star sapphire ring on to the chain before fastening the clasp again.

She was shivering still as if with cold, and her hands trembled so that she could hardly put the hooks of her dress into their eyelets. But somehow she did at last, and was sure that no one had seen.

More than one course had come and gone before her stealthy task was finished, and three or four minutes after the last hook had decided to bite, Constance looked at the Duchess of Peebles. Everyone rose, and, as Annesley had feared, Ruthven Smith followed the ladies out of the great dining hall.