Stacy pulled down his vest again, and broke into a mellow laugh.
"Well, I should like to see you try it on! What would you say to her, Maggie?"
"I would say: Mrs. Matthew Stacy, you and I were fellow-servants together in New York, where the lady was murdered; and for some days, you and I, and the person you have married, were left in charge of all the valuable property that house had in it. One of those nights I went away, leaving everything in its place. When I came back again the wardrobes had been plundered, the bureaus broken open, the wine-cellar pillaged."
Matthew Stacy had been growing crimson while Maggie spoke. He put up a hand to his throat, as if something were choking him, and tore open a button or two of his vest; then he gasped out:
"Miss Maggie, Miss Maggie, do you mean to insinuate that I or my wife Harriet—"
"I don't mean to insinuate anything, because what I say I know. You and your wife took these things. I knew it at the time; I can prove it now."
"Prove it fourteen years after?"
"Some things do not wear out—jewelry and India shawls, for instance. I was at the Opera not long since. My sister, who used to come and visit me so often, is a little in that line, and I used to show her all the shawls and splendid dresses our mistress used to have. Well, that night at the Opera we both saw your wife, sitting by you, with the best shawl the madam had, on her own shoulders. We knew it at a glimpse. There isn't another just like it to be found in England or America. That shawl, Matthew Stacy, is worth thousands of dollars, and your wife, Harriet Long, the cook, was wearing it."
"Margaret! Margaret Casey, you had better take care."
"I have taken care. This woman had a gold-mounted opera-glass in her hand that we both can swear to. Besides that, she had a little watch at her side, set thick with diamonds. That watch she took to a jeweller to be mended. It is in his hands yet. When I leave this seat, it will be my first business to make sure that she never gets the watch again."