“That’s because you were afraid to do anything else,” he assured her scornfully. “That’s because you’re weaklings. I’m not a weakling, my dear. In his place I’d have you. In my place I’ve evened the score—against both of you.”
She began to sense that there was something more, something she did not know. “What?” she asked faintly. “What have you done to him?”
He puffed at his cigar, relishing it, relishing the situation. “You two blind fools! Did you think I was also blind?”
She shook her head helplessly. “What are you trying to say?”
The man swung around for a moment to look toward the road and make sure the two men who had come with him were still in the car, then leaned across the table toward her, speaking softly.
“I gave Frank the combination of your safe,” he told her, grinning with delight in this moment of his triumph. “I told him to get the necklace, and take it to Boston. To have it restrung; a surprise for you. Told him not to let you see him, not to let you know. The poor fool believed me.”
She was staring at him, half understanding. “He didn’t steal it? He didn’t steal it, then?”
“And the pretty part of it was the way I rang you in,” her husband assured her mockingly. “Sending you down to the cabin at a moment when I knew he would be there. So that you might catch him in the very doing of it. So that your own testimony, my dear, might send this sweetheart of yours to jail.” Her eyes widened, she was white as snow; and he threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Ah, you see it now?”
Lucia came swiftly to her feet. “He didn’t steal it? He didn’t steal it?” she cried. “Oh, he won’t have to go to jail!”
Her husband chuckled, watching her narrowly. “Not so quick on the trigger, Lucia. Not so fast. He’ll go to jail, right enough. Don’t worry about that. And you’ll send him there.”