“Quite so,” said Tommy. “I should just like to know one thing-what is Mrs. Bett’s attitude in all this?”
“She wanted me to call in the police,” said Colonel Kingston Bruce reluctantly. “That is, when we had searched everywhere in case the pearl had only dropped off.”
“But you dissuaded her?”
“I was very averse to the idea of publicity and my wife and daughter backed me up. Then my wife remembered young St. Vincent speaking about your firm at dinner last night-and the twenty-four hours special service.”
“Yes,” said Tommy with a heavy heart.
“You see, in any case no harm will be done. If we call in the police to-morrow, it can be supposed that we thought the jewel merely lost and were hunting for it. By the way, nobody has been allowed to leave the house this morning.”
“Except your daughter, of course,” said Tuppence, speaking for the first time.
“Except my daughter,” agreed the Colonel. “She volunteered at once to go and put the case before you.”
Tommy rose.
“We will do our best to give you satisfaction, Colonel,” he said. “I should like to see the drawing-room, and the table on which the pendant was laid down. I should also like to ask Mrs. Betts a few questions. After that, I will interview the servants-or rather my assistant, Miss Robinson, will do so.”
He felt his nerve quailing before the terrors of questioning the servants.
Colonel Kingston Bruce threw open the door, and led them across the hall. As he did so, a remark came to them clearly through the open door of the room they were approaching, and the voice that uttered it was that of the girl who had come to see them that morning.
“You know perfectly well, mother,” she was saying, “that she did bring home a teaspoon in her muff.”
In another minute they were being introduced to Mrs. Kingston Bruce, a plaintive lady with a languid manner. Miss Kingston Bruce acknowledged their presence with a short inclination of the head. Her face was more sullen than ever.
Mrs. Kingston Bruce was voluble.
“-but I know who I think took it,” she ended. “That dreadful socialist young man. He loves the Russians and the Germans and hates the English-what else can you expect?”
“He never touched it,” said Miss Kingston Bruce fiercely. “I was watching him-all the time. I couldn’t have failed to see if he had.”
She looked at them defiantly with her chin up.
Tommy created a diversion by asking for an interview with Mrs. Betts. When Mrs. Kingston Bruce had departed accompanied by her husband and daughter to find Mrs. Betts, he whistled thoughtfully.
“I wonder,” he said gently, “who it was who had a teaspoon in her muff?”
“Just what I was thinking,” replied Tuppence.
Mrs. Betts, followed by her husband, burst into the room. She was a big woman with a determined voice. Mr. Hamilton Betts looked dyspeptic and subdued.
“I understand, Mr. Blunt, that you are a private inquiry agent, and one who hustles things through at a great rate?”
“Hustle,” said Tommy, “is my middle name, Mrs. Betts. Let me ask you a few questions.”
Thereafter things proceeded rapidly. Tommy was shown the damaged pendant, the table on which it had lain, and Mr. Betts emerged from his taciturnity to mention the value, in dollars, of the stolen pearl.
And withal, Tommy felt an irritating certainty that he was not getting on.
“I think that will do,” he said at length. “Miss Robinson, will you kindly fetch the special photographic apparatus from the hall?”
Miss Robinson complied.
“A little invention of my own,” said Tommy. “In appearance, you see, it is just like an ordinary camera.”
He had some slight satisfaction in seeing that the Betts were impressed.
He photographed the pendant, the table on which it had lain, and took several general views of the apartment. Then “Miss Robinson” was delegated to interview the servants, and in view of the eager expectancy on the faces of Colonel Kingston Bruce and Mrs. Betts, Tommy felt called upon to say a few authoritative words.
“The position amounts to this,” he said. “Either the pearl is still in the house, or it is not still in the house.”