"Nonsense! You're as bad as Miss Blackburne!" Beverley cut her short. "I thought that, for some reason, you might have hidden them. Now I know you didn't. Clo, this is the most terrible day—except one—in my life. I must find the pearls or Roger will never forgive me. And only a few minutes ago they were nothing, compared with the papers!"
Clo's wits, drowned in horror for an instant, came to the surface again. "What if O'Reilly took the pearls for revenge!" she blurted out. "Did he know—was he anywhere near them?"
Beverley, who had been standing by the bed, sank down upon it, and stared. "He did know," she said slowly. "And—and he was alone in the room with the pearls for some minutes if I remember rightly. You see, Sister Lake arrived. She was angry about your being out. I tried to soothe her. It was no use. She left, bag and baggage, in injured dignity. O'Reilly was in my boudoir. Oh, Clo, it must be he who took the pearls!"
The girl herself had said it: yet, when the words were repeated by other lips than hers, it gave her a shock. O'Reilly's face rose before her eyes. "I don't believe he did it!" she was surprised to hear her own voice cry out aloud.
"You suggested it yourself!" exclaimed Beverley.
"I know," the girl confessed. "The idea popped into my head. But it can't be true. He's not that sort, whatever else he may be!"
"He went off furious with you, with us both," Beverley said. "It must have been he who stole the pearls. There's a strong motive—something for him to hold over us, and force us to give the papers back."
"If we've got them!" cut in Clo.
Beverley sprang up. "I'm lost in this!" she faltered. "There are too many things against me. I can't cope with them all at once. I must go to the boudoir and get that envelope, whatever happens."
"What shall I do?" asked Clo.