James, it appears, came to London on an unexpected mission, differing from his ordinary trips. You may remember seeing in the papers some weeks ago that an agent of the Van Vreck firm was robbed on shipboard of a lot of pearls and things he was bringing to show an important client in England—some Indian potentate. James tells us that he procured the finest of the collection for the Van Vrecks, and as he is a great expert, and can recognize jewels he has once seen, even when disguised or cut up, or in different settings, he was asked to go to London to help the police find and identify some of the lost valuables.
Also, he was instructed to buy more pearls, to be sold to the Indian customer, instead of those stolen from the agent on shipboard. James had not found any of the lost things; but he had bought some pearls the day before the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's.
Wasn't it too unlucky? I have tried to give the poor fellow a little consolation by reminding him how fortunate it is he hadn't bought more, and that the loss will be the Van Vrecks' or that of some insurance company, not his personally. But he cannot be comforted. He says that his not having ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls doesn't console him for being robbed of eight thousand pounds' worth.
James has little hope that the thieves will be found, for he feels that the Van Vrecks are in for a run of bad luck, after the good fortune of many years. They have lost the head of the firm—"the great Paul," as James calls him—who has definitely retired, and occupies himself so exclusively with his collection that he takes no interest in the business.
Then there was the robbery on the ship, which, in James's opinion, must have been the work of a masterly combination. And now another theft! The poor fellow has quite lost his nerve, which, as you know, has for years not been that of a young man. His deafness, no doubt, partly accounts for the timidity with which he has been afflicted since the first (and only other) time he was robbed. And now he blames it for what happened last night.
He's trained himself to be a light sleeper, and if he could hear as well as other people, he thinks the thief would have waked him coming into his room. Once in, the wretch must have drugged him, because the pearls were in a parcel under his pillow. But how the man—or men—got into the house is a mystery, unless one of the new servants was an accomplice.
Nothing was broken open. In the morning every door and window was as usual. Of course the servants are under suspicion; but they seem stupid, ordinary people, according to James.
As for Mrs. Ellsworth, he says she is making a fuss over the wretched bits of jewellery she lost, things of no importance. She, too, slept through the affair, and knew what had happened only when she waked to see a safe she has in the wall of her bedroom wide open.
It seems that in place of her jewel box and some money she kept there was an insulting note, announcing that for the first time something belonging to her would be used for a good purpose. To James this is the one bright spot in the darkness.
When Annesley had read this long letter with its many italics, she passed it to Knight who, in exchange, handed her a London newspaper with a page folded so as to give prominence to a certain column. It was an account of the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's house, which he had been reading.