The smothered exclamation made it plain to me that she hadn’t missed the articles.
“May I ask you to verify them?” I went on. “If you should find later that something had disappeared, I shouldn’t like you to think that I had carried it away.”
She made a feint at examining the jewelry, but I could see that she was incapable of making anything like a count. It was I who insisted on going over the objects one by one.
“There’s this,” I said, touching the gold-mesh purse, but not picking it up. “I see there’s money in it; but it has not been opened. Then there’s this,” I added, indicating the pearl necklet; “and this,” which was the brooch. “The rings,” I continued, “I don’t know anything about. There are three here. That’s all I remember seeing; but I didn’t notice in particular.”
She said, in a breathless whisper, “That’s all there were.”
“Then may I ask if you mean to let me go?”
“How can I stop you?”
“Oh, in two or three ways. You could call your servants, or you could ring up the police—”
Her big, burning eyes were fixed on me hypnotically. The color began to come back to her cheeks, but she trembled still.
“How—how did you get in?”