The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces. Dorothy Fielding
to pledge them to me for the requested loan."
"I will make that pledge good," Arthur declared instantly and stiffly; and Kitty could have clapped him on the shoulder for the championship, for his deep and loyal anger at the aspersion against Violet.
"Yes, I don't doubt that you would," Ann said gently. "But I don't see how we're going to get around a startling difficulty in the way. These pearls aren't real. This is a necklace of imitation pearls."
"Nonsense!" Arthur exclaimed rudely, furiously, while Kitty caught her breath in, aghast.
Violet had certainly had no shadow of right to allege—as she had in that paper; it lay on the table and Kitty was reading it—that she owned the pearls; but that was as nothing to this dreadful rider. In a few days the pearls given to Violet provisionally were to be truly her own, as Arthur's wedding gift, although to be held as an heirloom. But if there were any reality in Ann's accusation—!
"You're talking nonsense, and spiteful nonsense!" Arthur went on still more roughly. "Of course these are the pearls I bought as part of my wedding gift."
He reached out to seize them, but in a twinkling Ann had slipped the string over her head and down inside her frock. She had on an ostrich-feather boa, and it covered the clasp.
"It's a lie!" Arthur exclaimed with clenching teeth, looking as though he could have struck Violet's accuser.
"Arthur!" Ann said quietly, "I think you're growing a bit Finchy yourself. I don't tell lies, nor cheat, nor steal. For that so-called 'loan' was stolen from me. I've asked Violet to meet me here without fail; and, as I hear some car driving up in a great hurry, it's probably hers. Oh, I haven't any wish to take her character away behind her back!" she finished with an open sneer. "I tried to get the Colonel here, too but he couldn't come."
The rage in Arthur's face again did Kitty good to see. But its occasion was tragic. If Ann's charge had any foundation...I Could it possibly have any? Ann was a serpent...Guile was her positive genius...
Quick and not overlight feet could now be heard coming up the stairs, and Violet was shown in. Was it that Kitty's eye was distorted by the previous scene? Or did Violet usually dress with greater care? Look less—well, yes, less common?
"What's it all about?" Violet demanded, as she entered, her colour mounting and then paling sickeningly as she saw Ann Lovelace. Kitty did not like that whitening face.
"Miss Finch, you got me to lend you close on five hundred pounds on a sham security," Ann said clearly and haughtily. "These aren't pearls at all. They're wax beads."
Kitty gave a sort of cry at this, and snatched in her turn at the string around Ann's neck which the wearer was touching scornfully.
"You liar! Or you've changed them!" Violet said hoarsely. And, as she heard her, a great relief came to Kitty. Of course! Ann had dug a pit, and was now about to fall into it herself. Kitty had never before known Ann to go anything like as far as this. But, given sufficient motive—and cover—there was nothing sinister of which she believed her incapable.
"Ah!" came from Arthur. And his tone of relief told Kitty how similarly he had been feeling. "Ah, I might have thought of that—"
"Instead of believing her lies against me!" stormed Violet.
"I didn't believe them, darling," he said swiftly. "But neither did I dream of such an explanation."
"Not being an absolute fool, you didn't," Ann interrupted, for hate was rising above dignified coolness. "How could I have had pearls copied which were not in my possession? If you weigh this string and the real one—if you even lay them side by side—you'll find them apparently identical. I've been to Rinks' this morning with that string, and they looked up their books."
Here Violet grew abusive, shrilling out her version of the affair. On Ann's insistence she had handed her the real pearls last night and regretted it bitterly enough at the time. She clutched Arthur's arm and assured him that she would never, never, never touch a gambling card again. She shrieked at Ann's perfidy in having taken her to a private gambling place for her own ends.
Kitty had never admired Arthur so much as now. It was both pain and pleasure to see how his hand covered Violet's, how he held her close, how he soothed and tried to quiet her hysterical rage.
And in the end Ann was beaten. Kitty had never hoped for this. But Arthur refused to listen to her, and as Ann, forgetting other things for the moment, leant far forward to assure Arthur that he was making the mistake of his life in not believing her, the beads swung free from her hands, and in a second, with a swiftness and a force that delighted Kitty, though it startled her, Violet had grabbed them, tugged the string in two, though it was strongly knotted between each pearl, and thrust them into the little silk handbag that she clutched tightly under her arm.
For a second Kitty thought Ann would actually spring at the other girl. But her self-control held. Instead, she gave Violet a look of such real and utter contempt that Kitty's faith wavered, gave Arthur its mate, and then, head high, would have left the room had not Arthur placed himself with his back to the door to prevent it.
"No, you can't leave like that, Ann," he said, and spoke in measured tones. "Not until you fully realise that if one word of these false accusations of yours get about I shall bring an action for libel—or rather my wife will."
Ann looked about her for the paper that had lain on the table. It, too, was gone—into Arthur Walsh's pocket!
"You have no proofs!" His flaming eyes burnt out of his deeply-flushed face as he spoke. He was in a rage of which Kitty had never thought him capable.
"Here is my cheque for your loan. I insist on your taking it. Violet regrets the whole transaction deeply. That, instead of coming to me, she borrowed from you. But your tale about her having got the loan from you on imitation pearls—" His teeth clicked together audibly. The muscles on his cheeks bulged for a second. Again Kitty felt that the natural man would have liked to hit out at Ann, standing quite composedly, though very white, before him.
For a second they stood face to face, then she made a gesture with her hand, motioning him to step out of her way. But he held his ground.
"I must have your promise, Ann, to keep absolute silence about this whole scene and affair," he persisted. "You thought you could disgrace Violet. You planned it all with devilish cleverness. But it won't work. I believe she speaks the truth, and I don't believe that you do, about the whole miserable matter."
"Yet you carefully pocket the paper she signed?" Ann's voice was contemptuous.
He nodded.
"And she broke and pocketed the string of alleged pearls!"
For a second Ann's self-control shook again, but she said no more, only stood a moment with head bent. Then she raised it to add quietly:
"I thought you were making a dreadful mistake. But it seems that it was I who made one. I see now that you and Miss Finch are well matched. As for your cheque repaying me, I accept it. I have no intention whatever—though she had—of making your fiance a present of my loan."
Her tone was steel. Then she stopped herself and with a final gesture of utter scorn for both, passed through the door which he now held open for her departure.
"Darling!" Violet flung her arms around Arthur's neck. "My own darling! That hateful creature! What awful lies! Oh, take me away, where I shall never meet her again!"
"My own Violet!" Arthur said tenderly. "I'll take you home at once. Forget the whole spiteful fiasco! But what about you, Kit? Will you come, too?"
Kitty, however, promptly said she needed a walk. And she did. A silent, almost forgotten spectator of the drama, she felt her brain spinning as she recalled it. What would her uncle do? Would he try to stop the marriage by cutting off Arthur's hugely increased marriage allowance and revoking his gift of the capital involved? As well as that of the Town house? Kitty wondered sadly if a struggle were coming between the Colonel and this his second and only surviving son? For Arthur would not give Violet up—of that Kitty now