were safe enough as long as I had anything to do with them.) Her
husband, who followed them, saw that he was suspected, and threw the
game into her hands, devoting himself entirely to putting his own
innocence beyond a doubt; in which, with Ralph's assistance, he
succeeded.

"I see now," continued Charles, "why she spilled her tea when Carr
arrived. She was taken by surprise on seeing him enter the room, having
had, probably, no idea that he was the friend whom you had telegraphed
for. I suspect, too, that same evening, after the ball, when she and
Carr went together to find the bag, it was to have a last word to enable
them to play into each other's hands, being aware, if I remember
rightly, that father had gone to bed in company with the key of the
safe, and that, consequently, the jewels might be left within easier
reach than usual. No doubt she weighed the matter in her own mind, and
decided to give up all thought of Lady Mary's jewels, and to secure
those which were ten times their value. She could not have taken both
without drawing suspicion upon herself. Like a wise woman she left the
smaller, and went in for the larger prize; a less clever one would have
tried for both, and have failed. She failed, it is true, by an
oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped
round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left
it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn
recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of
success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for
that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was
to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in
London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the
scene of the accident directly he heard of it, having received no
further communication from her. We arrived only ten minutes before him.
For my part, I admired _her_ more than I ever did before, when the truth
about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity,
without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found
that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre,
namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had
the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an
instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it."

"I wonder Lady Ma