Ernest Bramah

“ If I am to put my case before you, Mr Carrados, we cannot fence with phrases.... To-day you have had an exceptional opportunity of penetrating into our mode of life. You will, I do not doubt, have summed up our perpetual indebtedness and the easy credit that our connexion procures; Stephanie’s social ambitions and expensive popularity; her utterly extravagant incapacity to see any other possible existence ”

“ At home, if I call upon one of our princes of industry—a railway director, a merchant, or the head of one of our leading insurance companies—nothing will tempt him for a moment from the stern outline of the business in hand. You are too complaisant; the merest gossip takes advantage of you.’”
“That’s quite true,” admitted the General Manager, occupying the revolving chair at his desk and assuming a serious and very determined expression. “Slackers, I call them. Now, Mr Carlyle, where are we in this business?” ”

“ He had left his hat and stick in the hall and he now threw his yellow gloves down on a table and took up a negligent position on the arm of an easy-chair.
“The thing is, where do we stand?” he remarked tentatively.
“That is the attitude of the insurance company, I imagine,” replied Carrados.
“I don’t see that the company has any standing in the matter. We haven’t reported any loss to them and we are not making any claim, so far. That ought to be enough.”
“I assume that they act on general inference,” explained Carrados. “A limited liability company is not subtle, Mrs Straithwaite. ”

“ Stephanie followed him down the hall, arguing and protesting. That was how they came jointly to encounter Carrados at the door.
“I have come from the Direct Insurance in the hope of being able to see Mrs Straithwaite,” he explained, when the door opened rather suddenly before he had knocked. “My name is Carrados—Max Carrados.”
There was a moment of hesitation all round. Then Stephanie read difficulties in the straightening lines of her husband’s face and rose joyfully to the occasion.
“Oh yes; come in, Mr Carrados,” she exclaimed graciously. “We are not quite strangers, you know. ”

“ Everything is on our side. Louis, I won’t go this afternoon—I will put off till the night boat from Dover. That will give us nine hours.”
“Nine hours?” repeated the mystified Carlyle, scarcely daring to put into thought the scandalous inference that Carrados’s words conveyed.
“Nine full hours. A pearl necklace case that cannot at least be left straight after nine hours’ work will require a column to itself in our chart. Now, Louis, where does this Direct Insurance live?” ”

“ Carrados had previously indicated that after lunch he would go on alone, but, because he was largely sceptical of the outcome, the professional man felt guiltily that he was deserting. “Say the word?”
Carrados smiled and shook his head. Then he leaned across.
“I am going to the opera house now; then, possibly, to talk to Markham a little. If I have time I must find a man who knows the Straithwaites, and after that I may look up Inspector Beedel if he is at the Yard. That is as far as I can see yet, until I call at Luneburg Mansions. Come round on the third anyway.” ”

“ So one is liable to think offhand. Let us go further, however, merely accounting for those who are in a position to have information. There are the officials of the insurance company who suspect something; there is Bellitzer, who perhaps knows a little more. There is the lady in Surrey from whom the pearls were borrowed, a Mr Tantroy who seems to have been consulted, and, finally, your own servants. All these people have friends, or underlings, or observers. ”

“ The thought of the real loss will perhaps have a good effect; the publicity will certainly prevent her from daring a second ‘theft.’ A sordid story, Mr Carrados,” he concluded. “Do not forget your cigarette-case in reality.” ”

“ Carrados put in an instinctive word of warning, even raised an arresting hand, but the lady was much too excited, too voluble, to be denied.
“It doesn’t really matter in the least, Mr Carrados, because nothing came of it,” she explained. “There never were any real pearls to be insured. It would have made no difference to the company, because I did not regard this as an ordinary insurance from the first. ”

“ On that day Karsfeld, the Princess Street jeweller, y’know, who acted as our jewellery assessor, forwards a proposal of the Hon. Mrs Straithwaite to insure a pearl necklace against theft. Says that he has had an opportunity of examining it and passes it at five thousand pounds. That business goes through in the ordinary way; the premium is paid and the policy taken out. ”

“ He had been examining the second pair of gloves as they spoke and he now handed them back again. “They are undoubtedly of the same set,” he admitted, with extinguished interest, “and so our clue runs out.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” apologized Straithwaite, as he led his guest to his own smoking-room. “Stephanie,” he confided, becoming more cordial as two doors separated them from the lady, “is a creature of nerves and indiscretions. She forgets. To-night she will not sleep. To-morrow she will suffer.” Carrados divined the grin. “So shall I!” ”

“ What possibly has escaped you, for in society one has to disguise these things, is that I still love my wife.
“When you dare not trust the soundness of your reins you do not try to pull up a bolting horse. ”

“ And Teddy—oh, it is maddening!”
“I took it into my room and looked at it closely,” continued the unruffled Straithwaite. “Even if I had any reason to doubt, the internal evidence was convincing, but how could I doubt? It read like a continuation of the previous message. The writing was reasonably like Stephanie’s under the circumstances, the envelope had obviously been obtained from the box-office of the theatre and the paper itself was a sheet of the programme. A corner was torn off ”