I somehow realised that with the first moment that I opened the door to the tall, mackintoshed figure—it was raining again, of course, outside—Miss Million, very pretty and flushed and eager in her rose-pink tea-gown, followed close upon my heels as I let Mr. Brace in, and behind her came Miss Vi Vassity, sumptuous in the orange satin that she calls "the marmalade-coloured affair."
And all three of us, without even bidding the young bank manager "Good evening," chorused together: "Tell us, for goodness' sake, tell us at once! Who did steal the Rattenheimer ruby?"
"Nobody!" replied Mr. Reginald Brace, in his pleasant but rather precise voice, and with his steady grey eyes fixed on me as I, in my inevitable cap and apron, waited to take his coat.
We all gasped "Nobody? What——Why——"
"The Rattenheimer ruby has not been stolen at all," replied Mr. Reginald Brace, smiling encouragingly upon us.
And then, while we all gaped and gazed upon him, and kept the poor wretched man waiting for his dinner, he went on to tell us the full history of the celebrated ruby.
It appears that an exquisite paste copy has been made of the priceless pendant, which the German-Jewish owners have kept by them to delude possible jewel thieves.
And now it is they themselves who have been deluded by the same wonderful replica of the celebrated gem!
For Mrs. Rattenheimer, it appears, imagined that it was the replica that reposed in her jewel-case, from which the original was missing after that fatal ten minutes of carelessness during which she left that jewel-case and her bedroom door at the Cecil unlocked.
But upon sending that replica to the experts to supplement the description of the missing ruby, she was told that an absurd mistake had been made. This, the supposed "copy," was none other than the celebrated ruby itself!