"It's rather scrappy as yet. But so far, I should think Pavoya might have been working in a much more subtle way than you suppose. I knew that once, long ago, and again later, there was a plot to steal the pearls. Apparently both times it was got up by Russians. And you know they were royal pearls, given by the Tsarina of his day to Claremanagh's great-great-grandfather. Pavoya's a Pole, I believe, but she may be in Russian pay, or under Bolshevik influence. It certainly looks, on circumstantial evidence, as if she'd somehow got hold of the pearls, either in Paris, through Louis Mayen, unknown to his messenger; or else, yesterday by some amazing sleight of hand, while she was in Claremanagh's study. If she could have worried out of him the combination of the safe—and if by some excuse she induced him to leave her in the room alone after Defasquelle delivered up the box (we might assume she came at that time on purpose, perhaps not by Pat's invitation) she might have managed the job. Well—but that's about as far as my mind has worked, so far. Except that Claremanagh can't be expected to give the woman away so long as he isn't dead sure she's guilty—or which he hopes against hope that she isn't. He wouldn't accuse her, or have her accused if he could help it, even to save himself from your suspicions, which must make him writhe!"
"Are you standing up for him?" Juliet asked, quickly.
"No, not especially. But you've done him an injustice in one detail, to begin with. He did not have the copy of the Tsarina pearls made for Pavoya. He didn't have it made at all. It was done before his day—done by his mother's order. He told me the story in Paris, where the everlasting subject was you—you and the pearls. It seems that the Duchess—your Pat's mother—soon after her marriage received an anonymous letter warning her of a plot to steal the Tsarina pearls. It was signed 'A Well Wisher', and the writing looked foreign, but not ill spelt or uneducated. There was a hint that the plan was Russian, and the thieves would not be 'ordinary thieves.' Immediately after the Duchess ordered a London jeweller to copy the rope, clasp and all. When it was ready she had the real thing locked up in the bank. The copy was so good that no one except an expert could tell the difference. But there had been one mistake. The eye of the design in the clasp looked the wrong way—to the right instead of the left. However, hardly any one knew which way the original eye turned, so the mistake didn't matter much, and the family didn't trouble to have it rectified. That was a long time ago. But years after there came another warning; and when it was compared with the first the handwriting appeared to be the same. This time the letter was addressed to Claremanagh, who had come of age and had lent the pearls to some charitable exhibition. 'Russia will try again to get back her own. Take care,' the letter said—or something like that. I've forgotten the precise words Pat used. And it was signed, as before: 'A Well Wisher'. Now you see what my mind's working on."
"I do see," said Juliet. "Of course, in a way you make things look better for Pat. At least, he wasn't infatuated enough with that woman to have a copy of those famous pearls actually made for her to wear. Still, he must have given them to her—or lent them."
"I suppose so," Jack admitted, "unless——"
"Unless what?"
"Well, I know nothing about the lady except what I've heard—and that she's a dream of a dancer. But right or wrong, she has the reputation of being a tigerish young person when her blood's up. And it's conceivable she may simply have annexed the imitation pearls: put them on to 'see how she looked,' and refused to disgorge! Claremanagh isn't the sort of fellow who would be brutal with a pretty woman."
"He isn't, indeed! But, anyhow, he let her keep the things—and wear them, too; even if she never had the real ones. He receives her at the house when I'm out—when he pretends to be shut up with a cold. It must have been arranged that she should come then, and Togo bribed to let her in. Oh, it's all nearly as bad as it can be, if not quite! Pat doesn't deserve that his mind should be eased as it must have been when he saw at the last minute that I was wearing the horrid false beads last night. He'd been in such a state, for fear I'd 'make a scandal!' When he saw the rope on my neck, and heard me calmly accepting compliments on it, I suppose he thought, 'That settles that. She can't accuse dear Lyda now!' But he forgets. I can find proof enough to divorce him, without bringing up a question of the pearls at all."
"Is that what you intend to do?" asked Jack.
Juliet threw out her hands in a gesture of feverish weariness. "I don't know what I intend," she sighed, hopelessly, "I wish I could just die. Then maybe Pat would be sorry."