THE HOUSE IN CHARLTON CRESCRENT – Murder Mystery Classic. Annie Haynes
away."
"You must have had a very interesting life out there," Cardyn went on. "I have often meant to go out to Australia. I have even thought of settling down there, but something has always stood in the way."
"You have never been there?" the girl questioned.
He hesitated a moment.
"Well, I have. As a matter of fact I was born there, but I was brought home when I was too young to have properly appreciated my birthplace. Still, I suppose—" he shrugged his shoulders—"it may be because it is my birthplace that it appeals to me."
Margaret Balmaine's face altered indefinably.
"Where were you born?"
"In Melbourne, I believe," Bruce lied. "But my parents moved up-country and took a sheep farm there. They did not make it pay—in fact, lost all their money. Still, Miss Balmaine—"
He was interrupted by a sharp cry from the sitting-room.
"Mr. Cardyn! Mr. Cardyn! Come!"
It was Lady Anne's voice.
Hardly knowing what he feared, Bruce sprang to the intervening door and flung it open. Lady Anne was standing before her escritoire as if she had pulled herself up in her agitation. Her face was towards them, and it was white; the fear in her eyes that Bruce had seen on his first visit had deepened. Her left hand with the great diamond flashing over her wedding ring was grasping the top of the escritoire, and shaking as it clasped, so that in the momentary silence that followed her cry the two who were first in the room, Bruce Cardyn and John Daventry, could hear the rattling of the various objects that always stood before Lady Anne on the writing flap.
"My pearls! John! Mr. Cardyn!" she cried, as the two men caught her arms and helped her back to her chair. "My pearls have gone!"
"Impossible!" John Daventry began. "You must have put them somewhere else."
"When did you see them last?" Bruce Cardyn's voice cut across the other's, cool and incisive.
"About a month ago." Lady Anne's voice was firm and as controlled as ever now. She sat up and put John Daventry's arm from her. "I am not a fool to make a mistake about a thing of that kind. I remember exactly when I saw them and remember thinking that the clasp was loose and must be seen to."
"Where did you keep them?" Cardyn questioned.
For answer Lady Anne pointed to the escritoire. The door in the middle stood open and Cardyn saw that the back was a sliding panel after the fashion of those beloved of the Florentine makers. Behind it was an aperture, large, comparing it with the size of the escritoire; inside were several cases—one lay in front of Lady Anne on the flap. It was open and empty.
"You see," said Lady Anne. "The last time I had that case out the pearls were there. Now they are gone in spite of all my precautions. And—"
She paused. Cardyn and Daventry peered into the open cavity. The girls stood in the doorway huddled together in a frightened fashion.
"Oh, Aunt Anne! It can't be true! But I don't believe they can have been stolen—your lovely pearls! You must have put them somewhere else," Dorothy cried, while Margaret Balmaine looked on in horrified dismay.
"Put them somewhere else, indeed," Lady Anne said with a snort of contempt. "Are you a fool, child, or do you take me for one? I tell you, I put the pearls in there myself a month ago with all the usual precautions, and they have been taken away. Not by a burglar or a thief. No lock or spring has been broken. All have been unfastened and fastened again without any sign that a strange hand has touched them. Some one has learned the secret of the safe and used it, and has also got hold of my keys."
"Did absolutely no one know this secret but yourself, Lady Anne?" Bruce Cardyn questioned in an authoritative tone that made John Daventry look at him in surprise.
"Absolutely no one," Lady Anne cried emphatically.
"Your maid?"
"Knows no more than anyone else," Lady Anne answered, her eyes glancing from the detective to John Daventry, from him again to the group of girls in the doorway.
"Carry your memory back, Lady Anne, and see if you can recall any incident, however slight, that might have given anyone an inkling of the secret spring," Cardyn said again. "Sometimes a word is dropped that might be interpreted by some one on the look-out, or a letter—"
"Neither written nor spoken word has been dropped by me," Lady Anne declared with decision. "Still, I suppose there are burglars clever enough to set any precautions at naught." And as she spoke her keen eyes were watching, searching all the faces around.
"It would be a clever burglar who found the pearls in their hiding-place without help, and took them away without leaving any trace," Cardyn said quickly. "The other cases in the escritoire, Lady Anne. Have you looked whether their contents are safe?"
"No." Lady Anne leaned forward and opened one. "This is all right. I expect they all are. There is nothing of any value there—there has been nothing but the pearls for some months. Fortunately I moved my diamonds and all my rings, except the one I always wear, some time ago, to the Bank—rings are out of place on crippled hands and knuckles swollen by arthritis. So they are all safe and the thieves have not had so big a haul as they expected."
"Nevertheless, my dear aunt, in spite of that they have had a remarkably good haul in taking several thousand pounds' worth of pearls." John Daventry looked at Cardyn who was searching the hiding-place in the escritoire as though he thought the young man was taking too much upon himself. "Scotland Yard must be called in at once," he went on. "It is quite useless for amateurs to make suggestions."
"Quite!" Lady Anne agreed in her clear, crisp tones. "Do not trouble, John, I shall consult the police as soon as possible. Mercy on us! What is this?"
"This" was a loud wail that was set up from the doorway. Some one appeared to be going into hysterics.
"It is Pirnie, Lady Anne," said Margaret Balmaine. The girl looked frightened to death, her make-up standing out in ghastly contrast with the pallor of her face. "She was going by and I told her your pearls were missing."
Lady Anne could not suppress an expression of impatience.
"I wish you had held your tongue, Margaret. Don't be an hysterical fool, Pirnie!" she said, raising her voice. "If I do not weep and lament surely you need not."
"Oh, my lady, my lady! I can't get over it," the woman wailed as she pushed herself in front of Dorothy Fyvert.
Bruce Cardyn looked at her curiously. She was the one member of the household of whom he had hitherto seen the least. She was a tall, rather affected-looking woman evidently verging on middle-age, while clinging with both hands to the last vestige of youth. She still retained the remains of early good looks.
"I can't believe it, my lady! Your lovely pearls gone, that I have always been so proud of. I have always wanted you to put them in the Bank, your ladyship knows, and now I suppose everybody will be saying that I have taken them, though I'm as innocent as a babe unborn."
"Now may Heaven grant me patience with a fool!" Lady Anne groaned in her exasperation. "Please wait to protest your innocence until you are accused, Pirnie!"
Chapter V
"Detective Inspector Furnival will be here as soon as possible," Lady Anne announced.
She had come into the small study where Bruce Cardyn was working, walking with her stick as usual, and disdaining all proffered help. She waited before closing the door, and spoke apparently for the benefit of those behind her:
"I wish you to receive him, Mr. Cardyn, and to do what you can to help him."
Then she shut the door very carefully and came forward totteringly to the chair the young man placed for her.
"Well?"