I paused in sudden alarm. A look had crossed my uncle's face which assured me that we were no longer alone. Who could have entered so silently? In some trepidation I turned to see. A gentleman was standing in the doorway, who smiled as I met his eye.
"Is this Miss Van Arsdale?" he asked.
Instantly my courage, which had threatened to leave me, returned and I smiled.
"I am," said I. "Are you the inspector?"
"Inspector Dalzell," he explained with a bow, which included my uncle.
Then he closed the door.
"I hope I have not frightened you," he went on, approaching me with a gentlemanly air. "A little matter has come up concerning which I mean to be perfectly frank with you. It may prove to be of trivial importance; if so, you will pardon my disturbing you.
Mr. Durand--you know him?"
"I am engaged to him," I declared before poor uncle could raise his hand.
"You are engaged to him. Well, that makes it difficult, and yet, in some respects, easier for me to ask a certain question."
It must have made it more difficult than easy, for he did not proceed to put this question immediately, but went on:
"You know that Mr. Durand visited Mrs. Fairbrother in the alcove a little while before her death?"
"I have been told so."
"He was seen to go in, but I have not yet found any one who saw him come out; consequently we have been unable to fix the exact minute when he did so. What is the matter, Miss Van Arsdale? You want to say something?"
"No, no," I protested, reconsidering my first impulse. Then, as I met his look, "He can probably tell you that himself. I am sure he would not hesitate."
"We shall ask him later," was the inspector's response.
"Meanwhile, are you ready to assure me that since that time he has not intrusted you with a little article to keep--No, no, I do not mean the diamond," he broke in, in very evident dismay, as I fell back from him in irrepressible indignation and alarm. "The diamond--well, we shall look for that later; it is another article we are in search of now, one which Mr. Durand might very well have taken in his hand without realizing just what he was doing. As it is important for us to find this article, and as it is one he might very naturally have passed over to you when he found himself in the hall with it in his hand, I have ventured to ask you if this surmise is correct."
"It is not," I retorted fiercely, glad that I could speak from my very heart. "He has given me nothing to keep for him. He would not--"
Why that peculiar look in the inspector's eye? Why did he reach out for a chair and seat me in it before he took up my interrupted sentence and finished it?
"--would not give you anything to hold which had belonged to another woman? Miss Van Arsdale, you do not know men. They do many things which a young, trusting girl like yourself would hardly expect from them."
"Not Mr. Durand," I maintained stoutly.
"Perhaps not; let us hope not." Then, with a quick change of manner, he bent toward me, with a sidelong look at uncle, and, pointing to my gloves, remarked: "You wear gloves. Did you feel the need of two pairs, that you carry another in that pretty bag hanging from your arm?"
I started, looked down, and then slowly drew up into my hand the bag he had mentioned. The white finger of a glove was protruding from the top. Any one could see it; many probably had. What did it mean? I had brought no extra pair with me.
"This is not mine," I began, faltering into silence as I perceived my uncle turn and walk a step or two away.
"The article we are looking for," pursued the inspector, "is a pair of long, white gloves, supposed to have been worn by Mrs.
Fairbrother when she entered the alcove. Do you mind showing me those, a finger of which I see?"
I dropped the bag into his hand. The room and everything in it was whirling around me. But when I noted what trouble it was to his clumsy fingers to open it, my senses returned and, reaching for the bag, I pulled it open and snatched out the gloves. They had been hastily rolled up and some of the fingers were showing.
"Let me have them," he said.
With quaking heart and shaking fingers I handed over the gloves.
"Mrs. Fairbrother's hand was not a small one," he observed as he slowly unrolled them. "Yours is. We can soon tell--"
But that sentence was never finished. As the gloves fell open in his grasp he uttered a sudden, sharp ejaculation and I a smothered shriek. An object of superlative brilliancy had rolled out from them. The diamond! the gem which men said was worth a king's ransom, and which we all knew had just cost a life.
