Barry Pain

“ Here Lady Meskell, somewhat to my surprise, burst into peals of laughter. She sat down and rubbed her fat hands together cheerfully. “You are a very good girl,” she said. “I thought you were from the first. But I was just making sure. No; unromantic though it may seem, there is no liaison between myself and the man—he happens to be a cook—whom you saw leaving the garden. But amid your mistakes you made one or two very happy guesses. It is true that he took my pearls, and that I knew all along he had taken than, and that I knew his name. ”

“ I shook my head.
“Then I will tell you,” said Lady Meskell. “I will take a hand at this game of deduction and see if I can play it any better than you do. You knew that my mother was a Spaniard, and you supposed, quite wrongly, that I had some connexion with the Spanish Embassy. Why should a woman in my position meet a man in his position secretly, and in the Square Garden? How could he get into the Square Garden unless I lent him a key? There must be a romance here. Romance fits well with the Spanish blood, doesn't it? ”

“ That afternoon I bought a new hat, which suited me. That always gave me courage. And I took a hansom. Nothing keeps one's nerves steadier and raises one's self-respect more than a little extravagance, and I could not afford either the hat or the hansom. I drove to No. 14, and demanded, in a clear and unfaltering voice, if I could see Lady Meskell.
“Her ladyship is not at home,” said the butler. And I own that it was some relief to me to hear it.
“Will you tell her ladyship,” I said, as I handed him my card, “that I called with reference to her pearl necklace?” ”