to suspect her?”
“She has been with us some years, and we have always found her perfectly honest. But, of course, one never knows—”
“Exactly. Will you describe your staff, and also tell me who was present at dinner last night?”
“There is the cook—she has been with us only two months, but then she would have no occasion to go near the drawing-room—the same applies to the kitchen maid. Then there is the housemaid, Alice Cummings. She also has been with us for some years. And Lady Laura’s maid, of course. She is French.”
Colonel Kingston Bruce looked very impressive as he said this. Tommy, unaffected by the revelation of the maid’s nationality, said: “Exactly. And the party at dinner?”
“ Mr. and Mrs. Betts, ourselves—(my wife and daughter)—and Lady Laura. Young St. Vincent was dining with us, and Mr. Rennie looked in after dinner for a while.”
“Who is Mr. Rennie?”
“A most pestilential fellow—an arrant socialist. Good looking, of course, and with a certain specious power of argument. But a man, I don’t mind telling you, whom I wouldn’t trust a yard. A dangerous sort of fellow.”
“In fact,” said Tommy drily, “it is Mr. Rennie whom you suspect?”
“I do, Mr. Blunt. I’m sure, holding the views he does, that he can have no principles whatsoever. What could have been easier for him than to have quietly wrenched off the pearl at a moment when we were all absorbed in our game? There were several