She nodded. "Well, this afternoon, while I was practicing 'some serves, I happened to look towards the house just as a gust of wind blew back the curtains in one of the first floor rooms. You'd call it ground floor. And there stood Mr. Tibbitts by the window with a string of black pearls in his hands. He nearly dropped them, and looked ready to drop himself when the curtain billowed around him and he saw me on the grass.
"He sounded me when he came out as to whether I had noticed some beads he'd bought in the village as a present for his sister at home. Now, of course, that's quite possibly all the scene meant. But—it's funny! It sure is! He looked appalled when that curtain blew out like a sail and left the window free. Yet I can't think that Mr. Tibbitts is a thief! He is supposed to be a rich young man! But it was a string of black pearls that Mrs. Brownlow lost along with some sapphires, and those in Tibbitts's hand were just the length of hers—long enough to go around the neck—a choker string. And I never saw a lovelier sheen. They looked like black grapes. And Tibbitts was on the car the night they were stolen from Mrs. Brownlow—altogether—" she shook her head with its bright waves of light-brown hair—hair that matched her eyes in color.
"Which window was it?" Mackay asked at once.
"A long window in a room they call the cedar room. It's a sort of extra room. Hardly ever used."
"Not the room where the safe is?" Mackay asked. She shook her head.
"That's in Monsieur Pichegru's study. I know, because he wanted to lock away any jewelery or money of mine I might have with me. But about Mr. Tibbitts—" she looked inquiringly at Mackay, who only stood thoughtful and silent.
"Sakes alive, why don't you say something?" she said laughing.
"I'm thinking," he replied gravely.
"But I want to know what you think about what I've just told you—about Tibbitts—"
"It takes time to think," Mackay said judicially; "to think wi' any degree of usefulness, that is. But I'll admit that it's queer," he conceded with one of those boyish smiles that lit up his lean face.
"So are many little things about the house," she said in answer to that. "Tonight at dinner, for instance, when Sir Anthony's name came up. Mr. Smith and a friend of his, a Mr. Lascelles—the two you were watching when we met"—Vivian's eyes twinkled like brown diamonds at the recollection—"he's leaving tomorrow morning, by the way—looked so oddly at each other. A long, meaning look, especially when Monsieur Pichegru said he would put Sir Anthony up."
"Is he going to?" Mackay wanted to know.
"Mrs. Brownlow thought Sir Anthony wouldn't be staying long enough to make it worth his while changing over from the hotel. Besides dear old Mr. Murgatroyd got quite mad at the mere notion. I thought Mr. Smith, and Mr. Lascelles, too, both looked very disappointed. Certainly they were very silent for the rest of the meal. Say, Mr. Mackay, it all sounds so silly, gossiping like this. But I like talking to you. Partly because I sure am glad to have some one to speak to who reminds me of home. You look like the kind of men I'm used to. Though, heaven knows, they'd beat you when it comes to grabbing on to things! But also you never know what bit of idle chatter might not help a detective."
"Not this detective! Not me!" Mackay said gloomily. "I'm plum oot o' ma depth. But I'll dae ma best!" he finished sturdily.
She laughed. "My grandmother used to say:
"Do your best
And leave the rest,
Angels can't do better.
"But the trouble is it isna angels I'm up against," was his only comment on grandmamma's philosophy. "I've been trying to think things oot. But even if I had ma suspicions, hoo can I prove them?"
There was a short silence, then she told him of the morning at the abbey.
"Mr. Tibbitts was too funny. He grew just like a workman. Dropping his aitches and speaking like what we call a Bowery tough. And the way he turned on Mrs. Brownlow, when she was fed up with his talk about a rabble and asked him what it was. Asked him in the tone that says you don't care a cuss what it is—you know the tone." Vivian laughed again. "It sure was funny!"
"Do you think she likes Tibbitts?" Mackay wondered.
"She treats him very nicely. In a sort of elder-sister way that's quite charming. But, then, she is charming in everything she does."
"And her husband—Mr. Brownlow?"
"He speaks to him always in a very civil tone. More I can't say. Mrs. Brownlow told me that they met Tibbitts at Monte Carlo simply flinging his money away right and left. He was a mill hand. She thinks—she doesn't know—and his father emigrated and made a fortune suddenly and then died. She explained to me that they wanted Tibbitts to stay a while at the villa with them and learn to pick up a few things-"
"Such as Mr. Davidson's thousand pounds, and her jewelery?" asked Mackay grimly, and they both rocked in unseemly mirth.
"How mean we are to talk like this! Say, she fascinates me, Mr. Mackay. She's a wonderful woman."
"She's a face that doesna attract me," he said rather shortly.
"But she's so graceful!"
"Aye. She has a nice walk," he agreed. "I've heerd that Isadora Duncan walked that gait."
"I should like to know her better," Vivian went on, half to herself. "I'm sure she'd be interesting to know. Yet I can't think why I'm not sure."
She rose to go. But she had one question to put.
"Mr. Mackay why did you ask me where Monsieur Pichegru's safe is?"
"I've known of a missing paper once being a' the time in the man's own safe," he said darkly. "That's why, Miss Young."
Vivian thought this over on the way back to the house. And the more she thought it over, the less she understood exactly what the private detective meant. Did he know himself? But her thoughts now were really on Anthony Cross. Had he arrived? Would he and she meet? Tonight?
She heard her name called, and found Mr. Smith behind her on the path.
"I thought I heard voices in the summer-house. Have you left poor Tibbitts locked in?" he asked languidly.
"Oh, no," she spoke as casually as he. "I was talking to an acquaintance of mine who didn't know where Monsieur Pichegru's boundary runs. A man who's putting up at the Hotel de Bourgogne. By the way, he's an acquaintance of this Sir Anthony Cross's too."
"Why don't you bring him up to the house," Smith suggested in what sounded a sociable tone; "do you know if he's any good at squash racquets?"
"Let's ask him," she suggested.
They found the house, as she knew they would, empty. It had a window that looked on to the opposite side of the path, and she had talked to Smith as they walked towards it. Unless he wished to be found then, Mackay would be out over the sill and through the bushes, like a young salmon over a rapid; of that she was quite sure.
Smith murmured some vague word of regret about the squash racquets and strolled back, while Vivian took a turn through the orchard, enjoying the beauty around her.
Coming back to the villa once more, she saw ahead of her, in a corner of the thickly-wooded drive that made a little bay here, two people standing talking. One was Anthony Cross. He was speaking very earnestly to an over-dressed, over-painted woman. Or rather the woman was talking earnestly to Anthony Cross. She was a remarkably handsome woman too. Vivian thought that she must have been a singularly lovely girl. Standing still in the shadow of some trees she looked at them. By Anthony's expression she saw that he was trying to escape. But the woman would not let him go.