J. S. Fletcher

“ My plans are perfected. I shall never be seen again; I am starting a new life. But I want you to let my cousin know that wherever they may have got to, I did not appropriate her jewels. All I wanted was the £5,000. With that I shall make myself a man again.
“That’s all—except that I hope Antoinette and the jewel-case will come to hand. I understand that it only contained my cousin’s personal adornments—what a catastrophe if the celebrated Langthwaite pearls had been in it!—G. M.” ”

“ I continued, “if we cannot work out a little plan which will save the situation. Can you not go to Lord Langthwaite, invent some little story of a sudden necessity for coming to town, and of bringing the pearls with you for safety? Then we might get the police to work in a search for your maid.”
She pondered this proposition for a moment and then shook her head.
“Lord Langthwaite would not believe that Antoinette had stolen the jewel-case,” she said. “We had implicit faith in Antoinette—she has been with me ever since—since I was married.” ”

“ I replied, “there is only one thing to do. Lord Langthwaite must be informed of all that has happened. You must inform him yourself in your own way. I have no doubt whatever that Molesworth and your maid were in collusion, and that they met after he left you. The police must be employed, and in order that they may be called in, you must tell your husband of what has happened.” ”

“ She and the jewel-case are quite in safe keeping. Now put your things on and we will go to them.”
The Countess left the room in a great hurry, and the Earl turned to me.
“You can keep secrets, Mr. Campenhaye,” he said, “so I’ll tell you an interesting one. My wife thinks that the real Langthwaite pearls are in that case. They are not. What is in there is a magnificent imitation set, which only real experts could tell not to be the real ones. I keep that set down at Langthwaite. But the real ones—ah, they are safely locked up in the vaults of the Bank of England.” ”

“ Often I kept clients waiting impatiently in that room while I watched and studied them; I was all the more ready for them when I admitted them to my presence.
I was at my post of ’vantage when Killingley ushered the lady into the waiting-room. A tall woman of perfect figure and distinguished carriage, she was so closely veiled that I could see nothing whatever of her face, but I learnt much in one minute from her movements. She examined her surroundings as a caged thing might look around its den. ”

“ This is unbearable; this is ——”
“Lady Langthwaite,” I said quietly, “the bank-notes which you obtained at the Saxonstowe and Normanchester Bank yesterday, and brought in your jewel-case to King’s Cross this morning, were exchanged for gold by Captain Molesworth at the West End Branch of the Bank of England at three o’clock this afternoon. That, unpleasant as it may sound, or be, is the truth.” ”

“ I learnt from the commissionaire (who was communicative enough when I disclosed my identity) that he had gone off in the very taxi-cab in which the gold had been brought from the bank. And the commissionaire added that he knew the driver of that cab very well by sight, and that he was bound to come back to a stand in St. James’s Street, sooner or later. ”

“ Molesworth, when he left Lady Langthwaite at the hotel on the pretext of sending a telegram, must have gone straight to Antoinette, procured the jewel-case on some pretext, abstracted the notes, and returned the jewel-case to the maid. ”