It was something very much more exciting. The wire was signed "Reginald Brace," and it said: "I am coming down by the nine o'clock train to-night. Jewel mystery cleared up."
Oh, how can it have been cleared up? What is the solution of the mystery? To think that at least four and a half hours must elapse before we know!
Really, I do think Mr. Reginald Brace might have had pity on our burning curiosity and anxiety! I do think he might have given some hint, in this wire of his, as to who did really steal that wretched ruby!
"Well, s'long as it's all cleared up that it wasn't us that done it, that ought to be comfort enough to us," said my mistress philosophically, as I was fastening her into the blush-pink tea-gown for dinner. We've put dinner on an hour late since our visitor is coming down so late.
"Though, mark my words, Smith," she continued, "it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that young gentleman of yours from the bank brought down that mute-of-a-funeral from Scotland Yard to tell Miss Davis's new shoveer that he was wanted by the police this time!"
"We'll see," I said, smiling.
For the Honourable Jim's faults may be as thick and as black as the hairs of the Honourable Jim's head. But of this other thing I feel he could not be capable.
"It used to be me that thought you was too hard on that Mr. Burke, Smith. Now here you are turning round and won't hear a word against the man," said my mistress, half laughing. "You're as pigheaded as Vi about it! And, talking about Vi, here's this packet of golden hairpins she's left in here; she was lookin' all over for them this afternoon. Better take them in to her now."
It was on this errand that I entered the spare room that has been assigned to London's Love.
She was sitting in a cerulean-blue dressing-jacket in front of the looking-glass, drawing a tiny brush, charged with lamp-black, across her eyelashes, and using "language," as she calls it, over the absence of electric lights by which to dress.