So the very heart and essence of the tragedy, the crimson woof that knitted together the dark warp of its fabric, had all along been unreal and without substance! For a gem that can not be applied to its ordained function can scarcely be said to have an existence. Yet the Paternoster ruby had been potent to project its maleficent influence from the depths of its watery grave, and shape the destinies of the living. Verily, Fate never played a grimmer joke.
My thoughts drifted back to the night of the murder. Why had Felix Page paused beside the table while going between the hidden safe and Maillot, who was waiting in the library? I could imagine only one explanation: as he passed the table he was seized with a sudden impulse to impart the secret to the young man, even going to the extent of setting down the jewel-box so that one hand would be free to manipulate the tack-heads. But a second thought had prevailed. He picked up the box and proceeded on his way.
Genevieve, round-eyed, sat staring into the dying fire. (That was a jolly fire!) Presently her head bent over to my shoulder, and without looking up she quoted a familiar couplet which must have occurred to the reader ere this:
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear."
I mention the circumstance because it prompted an idea which suddenly set me to laughing. Genevieve looked at me in alarm.
"What in the world!" she marvelled, for the silence had been very sedate.
"Little girl," I at last enlightened her, "it will pay you to go with me when we leave here—to the Central Station. There 's something I want us to enjoy together; it will compensate for a deal of your late trouble and anxiety."
"What is it?"
"I want to hand Alexander Burke these papers, tell him they 're what was hidden in the table—then quietly watch him while he reads."
I meant to do it, too. But Genevieve failed to enter into the spirit of the suggestion.