A Case of Duplicity in Dorset by Clara Benson

Author:Clara Benson [Benson, Clara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mount Street Press
Published: 2017-11-17T19:11:23+00:00

After he left the study, Freddy went in search of Ro, and eventually found her in the garden, sitting on the edge of a fountain and smoking furiously.

‘Do you mind if I have a word?’ he said.

‘Not if it’s about the pearls,’ she replied.

‘Well, it is, but I haven’t come to pitch into you, I promise.’

‘What is it, then?’ she said grudgingly.

‘I know old Cedric has a bee in his bonnet about the Farleys, so he wasn’t thinking too much about what might have happened this weekend. I just wondered whether the pearls might not have been taken last November at all, but on Thursday. That’s when they came out of the safe, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Ro.

‘Who gave you them?’

‘Father, of course. I asked if I might have them to try on with my new frock, and he agreed, but told me to be careful with them. And I was!’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not as careless as people seem to think.’

Freddy refrained from pointing out that she had left what they now knew to be the fake pearls lying on her dressing-table when she had gone to bed the night before, and merely said:

‘What did you do with them when you got them? Try and remember. Were they in your sight all the time?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I took them upstairs and locked them in my drawer until I needed them. Then I tried on the dress and Mrs. Dragusha stuck some pins in me, then I put on the necklace.’

‘And you were the only person who touched it?’

‘Yes,’ she said, then remembered something. ‘Oh, no—Iris tried it on too.’

‘Iris?’ he said quickly.

‘Yes, but not properly. She only held it around her neck for a second and looked in the glass, then she took it off and handed it straight to me. I put it on and preened for a bit, then took it off and put it back in the box.’

‘Who else was in the room? Only Mrs. Dragusha?’

‘Yes. She wouldn’t touch them—said they were bad luck.’

‘What did you do with the box then?’

‘I put it on the dressing-table—just for a few minutes, while I showed them both the secret passage. Then Mother came in and I picked the box up and took it back downstairs to the safe.’

‘And you’re sure no-one went near the pearls at any other time?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘And nobody except your mother came in while you were looking at the secret passage?’

‘Nobody at all,’ she said firmly.

Freddy could see no reason why she should lie about it, since the blame for the necklace’s disappearance had been placed squarely on her shoulders, and she must surely realize that it would be to her advantage to create uncertainty on the matter. She must have read his thoughts, for she said ironically:

‘Kind of you to try and get me off the hook, but there’s nothing doing, I’m afraid.’

‘Sorry, old thing,’ he said. ‘I wish none of this had ever happened.’

‘So do I. I wish I’d never set eyes on those beastly pearls, in fact.

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