“The Yellow Gang, if you like to call it so,” acquiesced the inspector. “But then there comes up the question, how should they know that Mrs. Carnthwacke was taking her jewels to Mr. Bechcombe that morning?”
“And why does that puzzle you?” Mr. Carnthwacke inquired blandly.
The inspector glanced at him keenly.
“Mrs. Carnthwacke informed me that no one at all knew that she was thinking of parting with her jewels, and that her visit to Mr. Bechcombe that morning had been kept a profound secret.”
Mr. Carnthwacke threw himself back in his chair and gave vent to a short, sharp laugh.
“I guess you are not a married man, inspector, or you would talk in a different fashion to that! Is there a woman alive who could keep a secret? If there is, it isn't Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke. Nobody knew. Bless your life, I knew well enough she was in debt and had made up her mind to sell her jewels to Bechcombe. I didn't know the exact time certainly. But that was because I didn't take the trouble to find out. Bless your life, there are no flies on Cyril B. Carnthwacke. When she brought the empty cases to me to put away in the safe after she'd worn her diamonds the other day, she saw me lock them up in the safe and was quite contented, bless her heart. But I guess I was slick enough to look in the cases afterwards, and when I found them empty I pretty well guessed what was up. Then I took the liberty of listening one day when she was talking on the telephone and after that she hadn't many secrets from me. As for nobody else knowing”—with another of those dry laughs—“it would take a cleverer woman than Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke to keep it from her maid.”
“That may be,” the inspector said, smiling in his turn. “But to be as frank with you as you have been with us, Mr. Carnthwacke, we have taken steps to find out what the maid knows, with the result that we are inclined to think Mrs. Carnthwacke's statement practically correct.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Carnthwacke inquired with a satiric emphasis that made John Steadman look at him more closely. “Weel, I came out on the open and tackled Mrs. Carnthwacke myself this morning; we had a lot of trouble, but the upshot of it all was that I got it out of her at last that she had told nobody, but that she had just mentioned it to Fédora.”
“Fédora, the fortune teller!” Steadman exclaimed.
“The Soothsayer—the Modern Witch,” Mr. Carnthwacke explained. “All these Society women are just crazed about her of late. They consult her about everything. And I feel real ashamed to say Mrs. Carnthwacke is as silly as anyone. I taxed her with it and made her own up. ‘You'd ask that fortune-telling woman's advice I know,’ I said. And at last she burst out crying and the game was up. She swore she didn't mention names. But there, it is my opinion she don't know whether she did or not. Anyhow, gentlemen, I have given you something to go upon. You look up Madame Fédora and her clients. It's there you will find the clue to Luke Bechcombe's death if it took place as you think.” He got up leisurely. “If there is nothing more I can do for you gentlemen——”