Last of all, we now come to the lady's-maid, Evelina; and should you have a suspicion that she is likely to play an important part in the lamentable events which now followed, one upon the other, you will not be far wrong.
From the first, or, more correctly, from the second day I entered old Frick's house, this young girl had struck me as being strange. There was something mysterious about her, perhaps on account of her reserved and even sulky manners.
Sigrid also considered her unusually silent, more so by nature than most young girls are. She thought that she was a girl of strong character, and liked her, in spite of her reticent ways.
During the latter days she had been still more reserved than before, and had not given one the impression of being in good health, although there was little change noticeable in her appearance on account of her naturally pale complexion.
The afternoon of the disappearance of the diamond, Evelina had spent in the following manner (her explanation tallied exactly with that of others): She had, soon after dinner, when the family had retired to the museum, served the coffee there. When that was finished, she had left Villa Ballarat to visit her sick mother, just before the time Jurgens had left the house. At six o'clock she had returned to the villa again to fetch something she had forgotten, and had, at the same time, put on another dress on account of a change in the weather; but she had been scarcely half an hour in the house.
It struck me as strange that Evelina had suddenly become more lively than I had ever seen her, and Sigrid also thought that she looked better and more cheerful since the day when the diamond disappeared.
As regards Evelina's mother, Madame Reierson, I found out that she made her living by washing and ironing, and by letting a couple of her rooms; but it was said that she was fond of drink, and that her principal income evidently consisted in what her daughter allowed her. Miss Frick's generosity no doubt enabled Evelina to give her mother considerable help.
Madame Reierson's specialty lay in talking of times gone by, when Reierson was alive and was a well-to-do turner in Grönland; "she too had had her own house and a horse and trap."
As you see, I had not gained much by my investigations, but my opinion regarding the loss of the diamond had, however, begun to take shape, which made it desirable that I should make Madame Reierson's acquaintance.
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