"I am afraid you have been deceived by a clever impostor," the inspector said gravely. "The person who sold you the pearls was not Lady Anne Daventry herself, but some one impersonating her."
"But it is impossible," stuttered the manager. "I tell I you knew Lady Anne not only by sight, but had often spoken to her. I am certain it was Lady Anne who brought the pearls."
"Well, if you are right, the mystery only deepens," the inspector said diplomatically. "Will you please tell us all about the interview. Every detail of it, so far as you remember."
The manager waited a moment.
"It—there is so little to say," he began at last. "Lady Anne arrived punctually at the time she had fixed on the Friday of last week. I went out to receive her and with her man on the other side helped her from the carriage. From there she walked in here with my arm and the stick on the other side. Her man carried the case containing the pearls. I may say that Lady Anne explained that she would have brought her maid with her, but that she did not wish the woman, who I understood had been with her for many years, to know that she had parted with her pearls. The interview was very quickly over. We had valued Lady Anne's pearls for her some years before, so that she knew what to expect and we were quite satisfied to give the price she asked. I helped her back to her carriage, and she drove off promising, as I say, to call to complete the transaction next week, on the 5th of February."
"I wonder why she did not arrange to come sooner," the inspector said, speaking as if half to himself, while his small grey eyes watched every change in the other's face from beneath their lowered lids.
The manager spread out his hands.
"Who can account for the vagaries of these great ladies? Lady Anne did, however, say something about having something else to bring us to-day."
"And you really noticed nothing unaccustomed or strange in her voice or manner?"
"Nothing!" the manager said decidedly.
"She talked in her usual brisk and rather snappy manner—for there is no denying she was a snappy old lady, you know, inspector! And she wore the same sort of clothes she always did—a rather full mantle, some magnificent furs and a regular Victorian bonnet. No, I noticed nothing particular about her except—But, no, there couldn't be anything in that."
"Perhaps you will let us have it?" suggested the inspector. "We can't afford to neglect any clue, however slight."
"Well, it was nothing of course," the manager went on. "But I noticed that she signed the receipt without removing her gloves. I remarked it because I remembered the big diamond she generally wore and glanced to see if it was still there. I thought it a little strange perhaps that she did not take off her glove, but of course one can understand that crippled with rheumatism as she was it may have been very painful to pull her gloves off and on."
"H'm!" the inspector scratched the side of his nose reflectively, with the handle of his fountain pen. "May I see the receipt?"
"Certainly!" The manager unlocked his desk. "Here it is. Only the signature is in Lady Anne's writing of course."
"Of course," assented the inspector. "Mr. Cardyn, what do you make of this? Is it Lady Anne's writing? This gentleman was Lady's Anne's private secretary," he added as Bruce bent over the paper.
Undoubtedly it was almost identical with the crabbed and shaking handwriting that had become very familiar to Bruce Cardyn of late. Almost—and yet, was it quite? Bruce could not answer the question to his own satisfaction. At last he looked up.
"If it is not Lady Anne Daventry's signature it is a remarkably clever imitation. But—I am not sure—"
The inspector handed the receipt back to the manager.
"Take care of it, sir. We may want it later. And—one more question, and then I will not detain you longer. Did Lady Anne come in her own carriage?"
"I really couldn't be certain," the manager said, beginning to look uneasy. "It was a private car and there were two men on the box, so I took it for granted it was her own, but I can't say any more."
"Well, I am very grateful to you for allowing us to take up so much of your valuable time," the inspector said, getting up. "And they say gratitude is a sense of favours to come—I am afraid we shall take up more of it yet. Good morning."
When they were out of sight of Messrs. Spagnum and Thirgood's, and their taxi was bowling as swiftly as the traffic would allow towards Bayswater Road, Bruce Cardyn looked at the inspector.
"Did it strike you that manager fellow looked a trifle pale at the end?"
"Afraid of losing his job if he let himself be taken in by an impostor, however clever, I expect," the inspector explained blandly. "But"—throwing himself round and almost facing the young man—"this is a queer case, as queer a case as ever I came across. As a rule one is bothered to find a clue—here the clues seem to tumble out under one's nose all the time. The difficulty is they all lead in different directions, and I'm blessed if I can make out the right one as yet. Now—"
He stopped and looked out at the traffic without speaking.
"Now—?" Bruce Cardyn repeated curiously.
The inspector gave an odd little laugh.
"I am wondering whether Lady Anne Daventry did not sell her jewels herself and simply wanted us to imagine that they were stolen. Such a case is not without a parallel in the annals of the British aristocracy."
"I am quite sure there was nothing of that kind about the loss of Lady Anne's jewels," Bruce Cardyn said firmly. "Besides, surely her murder shows—"
"So you imagine Lady Anne was murdered by the person who stole the pearls?" The inspector questioned, fixing the young man with his gimletlike gaze. "And why?"
Bruce Cardyn felt as if the solid ground was melting away beneath his feet.
"So that the identity of the thief should not be discovered," he said slowly.
"So that is your theory," said the inspector with another of those queer little laughs. "But does it not strike you as odd, Mr. Cardyn, that, if the pearl thief were also the murderer, Lady Anne should have been killed just a week before the day fixed for the payment of the second half of the purchase money, and what about the secret poisoning? Ah, ah, Mr. Cardyn, is it possible that you private inquiry gentlemen still have something to learn from the real article?"
Chapter IX
It was a week to the day since the murder of Lady Anne Daventry.
Inspector Furnival was sitting in the library on the first floor, ostensibly looking over the notes in his pocket-book, with an occasional glance at the pile of the daily papers that lay on the table beside him, in reality keeping a keen watch on the door leading into the hall which he had left open.
Lady Anne's funeral had taken place the previous day. Her will had directed that she should be buried in the nearest place of interment to the place in which she died, "having," as that document stated, "an objection to having my body carted about the country." So that instead of a stately funeral at Daventry there had been a very simple affair in a big London cemetery. The time of the service had been kept secret or there would have been the usual crowd of sightseers. But there was scarcely anyone about when Lady Anne's coffin with its plain black handles, as directed in her will, was borne over the short grass to its last resting-place. John Daventry and the rector of North Coton had been the chief mourners and then there had been other Fyverts and Daventrys—conspicuous among them the present Lord Fyvert—the dead lady's nephew. Bruce Cardyn walked with the inspector and behind them came the servants, Soames and Pirnie at the head of them. The service had been as brief as possible, and most of the mourners had dispersed without returning