"But I am not there," argued the Frenchman, unfamiliar with English idioms. "Seals can be taken off and fastened on again, I have heard, without the change leaving a trace. I am certain these are intact. But, putting aside myself and the Pursuer, Monsieur would not——"
"Rot, my dear fellow!" cut in the Duke. "I trust Mayen as I trust myself. Of course, I know—we all three know—the pearls are inside that box. You say you can't wait for my wife to come home. I say the seals shan't be broken by any hand but hers. Let's be sensible! Manners, come here, won't you, and reassure Monsier Defasquelle by examining these seals!" He snatched the box up from the table, and held it out to Jack. "You've got sharp eyes. I leave it to you. Can't you swear that those five red blobs have never been tampered with, even by the smartest expert alive?"
Reluctantly Jack came forward, and accepting the box, closely examined the seals. "I think I'd be prepared to swear that," he said. "All the same, Monsieur Defasquelle is right, in my opinion. You owe it to him—to everyone concerned, including the company who've insured the pearls—to open the box before you let it go out of your sight."
"You're no true friend of Juliet's, to give me such advice," Pat taunted him. "And I won't take it. That's flat. While as for the seals, look there!" As he retrieved the package, he nodded at a ring on the least finger of his right hand.
Both men's eyes went to it; Defasquelle's to note, perhaps, how precisely the raised design of the wax resembled the sunken design on the gold. But there was a different thought in Jack Manners' mind. He remembered what Juliet had written him about this ring. What had happened between her and Pat? was the question that flashed through his head. A few hours ago she had sealed her "secret letter" with her husband's ring, after some dispute concerning it. And now, here it was on Pat's finger again!
Claremanagh, unconscious of Jack's disparaging reflections, began to regain something like his old gaiety of manner. "Are you satisfied, Monsieur?" he asked. Then, seeing that Defasquelle screwed up his brilliant eyes in a near-sighted way, the Duke flung the box on the table, and pulled off the ring.
"Have a good look at it," he said, almost forcing it into the Frenchman's hand. "There's a safe in the wall of this room, made by my dead father-in-law, to keep such things as he didn't care to send to the bank. My wife and I are the only people alive who have keys to it, or know the combination. Besides, my own man is the one servant allowed in this room. So you see, Jack, I don't need to keep the box 'in sight' after Monsieur Defasquelle goes."
As he spoke, he walked toward an alcove at the left of the fireplace. It was fitted with bookshelves; and as Manners' eyes followed Claremanagh he remembered the secret of Silas Phayre's safe. Part of the top shelf had to be pulled out from the wall (after touching a spring) and then pushed up. Thus a small steel door was revealed, and could be unlocked only after a certain combination of letters had been made. Jack had not thought of the safe in years, or glanced in its direction on entering the room; but now, to his surprise, he saw that the bookshelf had already been pushed up, and the safe-door not only revealed, but opened.
Claremanagh's back was turned to him, and he could not see by a change of face whether Pat was vexed at his own forgetfulness, or indifferent. But Jack remembered the hidden fourth person in the room, and instinct told him that the safe had not been opened in readiness for the pearls. There had been some other motive. Claremanagh and the Polish woman had been interrupted in their tête-à-tête, and it would be characteristic of Pat if an unexpected rap on the door had caught him unawares. Could he have been in the act of giving Pavoya a jewel from the safe when he had been forced to answer a knock?
Luckily, no such suspicion could be in the Frenchman's head, for he had not seen Pavoya slip into the house. Jack glanced at him, and saw that he had laid the Duke's seal ring on the table beside the sealed packet. He was looking at the safe, but showed no surprise at finding it open. For him, it had been prepared to receive the pearls.