“Now that we have despatched our wires, letters, secured passages, and done no end of fagging things—including my interview with Mrs. Hooper—let us discuss the great pearl mystery,” said Alaric, as we paced up and down Mrs. Osborne’s long verandah, whilst the monsoon torrents poured and splashed outside. “You say you never had them out of your hands but once—and when was that?”
“The day before I sailed,” I replied, “when I was in London with Linda, I broke the string, and we went out and left the necklace at a shop, a middling sort of jewellers, near our middling sort of hotel, and said we would call back for it that evening, which we did. It was getting dusk, and after a little delay a woman, whom I had not seen before, found the pearls and handed them to me; the charge was three shillings, and we thought it extravagant for just a string of cotton!”
“I see it! I see light!” exclaimed Alaric, coming to a standstill. “By mistake, she gave you another necklace—a necklace of real pearls—and has never been able to trace it! Letty, it must be our first business, when we get home, to find this woman, and restore the treasure-trove.”
Alaric faithfully fulfilled his promise; he and Linda and I, after some difficulty, discovered the jeweller’s shop, but it was closed and “To Let.” We enquired for the late tenant, and were informed that his name was Hobhouse; he had had a lot of trouble, become a bankrupt, and completely disappeared. After long and vexatious delay we eventually traced the man to a small seaside town, where he was endeavouring to earn money as a working jeweller, whilst his wife took in a humble class of summer lodgers. In a little formal row of thin red-brick houses we knocked at number nine, and the door was opened by Mrs. Hobhouse herself. When she beheld us she turned a ghastly colour.
“Tom, it’s them!” she screamed to someone in the back of the premises, “the two girls come at last!” Then she staggered into a musty little sitting-room and collapsed on the sofa in floods of hysterical tears. Her husband now joined us, a thin, careworn man, who was evidently trembling with agitation. As soon as Mrs. Hobhouse could speak (she subsequently did all the talking) she informed us that a most valuable heirloom had been entrusted to her husband for some slight repairs. It was a family treasure, but her ladyship knew that Hobhouse was as honest as the sun. In the dusk she herself had given me the treasure by mistake, and next day handed the mock pearls to the countess! Of course there was an awful outcry—terrible work. Hobhouse had done everything he could to trace me; employed detectives, and advertised far and wide—even to America—but all to no purpose. They were sued by the countess, who had been deprived of her ancestral pearls—and implacably sold up.
Ruined alike in money and credit—and that just as they were beginning to make a start—no one would believe them—no, not their own relatives; but all the world wondered what they had done with the Warrenford pearls?
I handed them over to Hobhouse when he entered, and never, never shall I forget his gasp of relief. (Strange to say, my own imitation pearls still remained in their possession, and when I departed I carried them away.) Poor people, their joy, ecstasy, and thankfulness was touching; for my own part, I felt painfully overwhelmed as I listened to the list of extraordinary misfortunes of which I had been the unconscious cause.
That same evening I wrote to Lady Warrenford, the owner of the pearls; and thanks to her good offices, and a substantial cheque from Alaric, Mr. and Mrs. Hobhouse are once more reinstated, and doing a flourishing business.