“Of course you haven’t.” Valeria became grave. “And of course Mrs Solano is making a mistake—”
“I am not making a mistake. I am certain that the necklace is mine, and I insist upon examining it.” Mrs Solano spoke with the firmness of a woman who is accustomed to know what she means to do, and to do it.
Valeria, speaking very gravely, said:
“I think you are acting in a very strange manner, Mrs Solano, and later you will probably regret it very much.” She was standing in the doorway, and she now turned her head and looked into the ballroom. Immediately she added: “But as you have gone so far, I, as a friend of Mrs Temple’s, must insist that the matter be put right. Some responsible person must be called in to see the necklace with you, and relieve my poor little friend of any further unpleasantness. Mr Quelch is just the man to do this, and I see him over there in the ballroom. Please all remain here while I fetch him.”
She was only two or three seconds away, and during her absence the three women stood still as though turned to stone. Quelch and Mrs Cork made their way across the ballroom, their heads bent in conversation. Presently they emerged through the door by which the three awaited.
“I have explained everything to Mr Quelch,” said Mrs Cork quietly. “Mrs Temple, will you please hand him the necklace and he and Mrs Solano can go and look at it quietly in his sitting-room.”
“This is all very mysterious,” said Quelch in his charming voice. “But I’ve no doubt we can clear it up immediately.”
Valeria Cork had lifted the necklace quietly over Loree’s head.
“It will be perfectly safe with Mr Quelch,” she said in a low voice. A minute after she put her arm through Loree’s. “I hear the ‘cup’ is delicious and I am so thirsty,” she said. “Let’s go and have some.”
She drew Loree away in one direction and Quelch and Mrs Solano went in another. Mrs Solano’s friend, who throughout the proceedings had never spoken a word, remained standing like a pillar of salt, in the verandah.