"Reconstruct the dreadful crime," suggested Digby. "Wash out Aunt and the Chaplain."
"And the girls," said Michael. "If anyone even glanced at the possibility of Claudia stealing, I'd wring his beastly neck until he could see all down his beastly back."
"I'd wring the neck of anyone who even glanced at the possibility of Isobel stealing--until he hadn't a head to see with," added Digby.
"Wouldn't it be too silly to be worth noticing at all?" I asked. I was thinking more particularly of Isobel.
"Let's go and beat young Gussie," said Digby.
"Gussie doesn't know a thing about it," said Michael. "Nothing but genuine injured innocence would have given him the pluck to call us 'Filthy liars,' and 'Damned hypocrites.' You know, if he'd been guilty, he'd have been conciliatory, voluble, and tearful--oh, altogether different. A much more humble parishioner."
"Believe you're right, Beau," agreed Digby. "Nothing like a sense of injustice to put you up on the bough. . . . 'Sides, young Gus hasn't the guts to pinch anything really valuable. . . . And if he'd taken it for a lark and hadn't been able to put it back, he'd have hidden it behind a cushion till he could. I quite expected to find it in some such place. That's why I gave him the chance. . . . If he has got it, he'll shove it back to-night," he added.
"He hasn't," said Michael--and again Michael and I found ourselves looking at each other.
"Well--that leaves us three then," said I.
"It does," said Michael.
"You can count me out, old son," grinned Digby. "Search me."
"Which reminds one, by the way, that we didn't search ourselves, or each other, when we searched Gussie," said I. "It would have been fairer . . ."
"Most undignified and unnecessary," put in Michael.
"So Gussie seemed to find," chuckled Digby.
"Then that leaves you and me, John," said Michael.
"Yes, it leaves me and you, Beau," I agreed, and again we stared at each other.
"I did not take the 'Blue Water,' Beau," I said.
"Nor did I, John," said Michael.
"Then there's a mis-deal somewhere," remarked Digby, "and Gussie must have done it. Anyhow--it'll be put back in the night. Must be."
"What do you say to our sitting here until we hear somebody come down to the hall? That door always makes a frightful row," I suggested.
"Certainly not," said Michael sharply.
"Why not?" I asked, eyeing him.
"Why, you ass, it might not be . . . I mean we might . . . Anyhow, we've no right to interfere with Aunt's arrangements. She has given the person a chance . . ."
Michael was by no means fluent. He turned to Digby.
"Don't you think so, Dig?" he asked.
"Any ass can sit up who wants to," was the prompt reply. "I have had enough of to-day, myself. Who's coming up?" He rose and yawned.
"I say," he chuckled, "what a lark to pinch the key and hide it."
"Don't be a fool," said Michael. "Let's go to bed," and we went with our usual curt "Good nights." . . .
But it was easier, for me at least, to go to bed than to go to sleep, although my brain seemed somewhat numbed and dulled. I lay and tossed and turned, refusing to believe that Michael had done this disgusting thing, and unable, somehow, to believe that Augustus had. It did not occur to me to doubt Digby--and, as I have said, I should never have dreamt of doubting Michael, had I not caught him.
Leaving out Aunt Patricia, the Chaplain, Digby, and Augustus, there remained Isobel, Claudia, Michael, and I. Eliminating Isobel, there remained Claudia, Michael, and I. It could not be Claudia. How could it be Michael?
Had I done it myself?
Such was my mental condition by this time that I actually entertained the idea. I had read a book not so long before, in which, after a most tremendous mystery and bother, it turned out that the innocent hero had committed the crime while in a somnambulistic condition.
That could not apply in my case, of course. . . . There was no question or possibility of sleep-walking or trance about it--but might I not, absolutely unconsciously or subconsciously, have put the thing in my pocket without knowing it? People undoubtedly did do absurd things in fits of absent-mindedness, to their subsequent incredulous astonishment. I had never done such things myself--but might I not have begun doing them now? It was certainly as possible as it was utterly improbable. I actually got up and searched my clothes.
Of course I found nothing, and hour after hour of cogitation and reiterated argument brought me nearer and nearer to the conclusion that either Augustus or Michael was the culprit.
Having repeatedly arrived at this inevitable point, I delivered myself of the unhelpful verdict, "Augustus or Michael--guilty. And I believe Augustus isn't, and Michael couldn't be!"
Anyhow, daylight would find the wretched stone back in its place, and the whole business would be merely a very unsatisfactory and annoying puzzle, until it faded from the memories of the eight people who knew of it.
I turned over and made another resolute effort to go to sleep--a foolish thing to do, as it is one of the best ways of ensuring wakefulness.
My mind went off on a new tack. Suppose the "Blue Water" were not put back during the night? What exactly would happen?
One thing would be clear at any rate--that a determined effort was being made to steal the jewel, by somebody who intended to convert it into money.
Certainly Lady Brandon, that maîtresse femme, was not the person to accept that "lying down," and she would surely take precisely the same steps for its recovery that she would have taken had it been stolen by burglars or a servant. She would communicate with the police, and see that no one left the house until the matter was in official hands.
It would be inexpressibly unpleasant and degrading. I imagined the questioning, the searching, the loathsome sense of being under suspicion--even Isobel and Claudia. At four o'clock in the morning the whole affair looked unutterably beastly.
And then I pulled myself together. Of course it would be all right. The idiot who had played the fool trick, and been too feeble to own up, would have replaced the jewel. Probably it was there now. The said idiot would have been only too anxious to get rid of it as soon as Aunt Patricia had put the key in the brass box. . . . Why not go and make sure?
Of course--and then one could put the silly business out of one's mind and get some sleep.
I got out of bed, pulled on my dressing-gown, and put my feet into bedroom slippers. Lighting one of the emergency candles which stood on the mantelpiece, I made my way down the corridor to the upper of the two galleries that ran round the four sides of the central hall, and descended the stairs that led to the gallery below, and thence to the hall. Crossing this, I entered the outer hall, avoided the protruding hand and sword-hilt of a figure in armour, and made my silent way to the big stone fire-place.
On the broad shelf or mantelpiece, some six feet from the ground, was the ancient brass box, dating from the days of pack-horse travel, in which my aunt had placed the key.
Only she hadn't--or someone had removed it--for the box was quite empty!
Was this a trap, a trick of Lady Brandon's to catch the guilty one? Justly or unjustly, I thought she was quite capable of it.
If so, presumably I was caught again in this indiscriminating trap that another should have adorned. I was reminded of the occasion many years before, when she suddenly entered the schoolroom and said, "The naughty child that has been in the still-room has got jam on its chin," and my innocent and foolish hand promptly went up to my face to see if, by some wild mischance, it were jammy.
Well--the