"Didn't Pat say anything about himself—where he was going from the club, what had happened since you met, or what he meant to do to-day?"
"Nothing—except that he was writing in a hurry after 'settling up with Markoff' and seeing the last of him, for he had 'something rather important to do.' That was all, absolutely all. Captain Manners, you look strange! What have you to tell me in exchange for my story?"
"Why, to begin with, that I don't understand as I thought I did, why you've told it," Jack stammered. "I imagined it was because you knew Pat and my cousin had quarrelled, that he had left her—or anyhow disappeared—and you wanted me to justify you with Juliet."
Lyda stared at him across the table, her hands suddenly pressed over her heart. "Mon Dieu!" she whispered. "Claremanagh disappeared!"
"But," went on Jack, collecting his wits, "if you didn't know, what did you mean when you said that Markoff's hand in the pearl business didn't clear up the mystery, but only made it more mysterious?"
"I meant, of course, those innuendos in that horrible paper—the hints that the Duchess was wearing false pearls. It is not to Markoff's advantage to start such a rumour now. He has nothing to gain—no longer any hold over Claremanagh or me. He would do himself no good, but much harm. Oh, Captain Manners, where can the Duke be?"
"I came here to-night racking my brains vainly as to that," Jack encouraged her. "Now, thanks to you, I've something to go upon, something to tell the detective whom I shall see first thing to-morrow. This Markoff is my starting point now: his scheme of years to steal the pearls. How he can have got into the house, opened the safe, taken the things out of the box, and sealed it up again with the false pearls inside, I can't see yet, but——"
Lyda sprang to her feet. "You say—he has done that!"
"Someone has done that. You—Pat didn't tell you in his letter, about what had happened to the box you must have seen?"
"No—no. He didn't mention the pearls—or the box. Who discovered the theft?"