He left the house a few moments later, after his aunts had pressed him to return the following evening to tell the news about the trial. And he did this, entering the drawing-room at Pembridge Terrace the next night about nine o’clock with a slight flush on his somewhat haggard face.
“Well,” he said, quietly, but still with the air of a man who has gained something he had fought for, “we have won our case.”
“Do tell us all about it, dear!” cried his aunts in chorus.
“Will it bore you?” asked Ralph Webster, looking at May.
“No, indeed, it will not,” she answered.
“I will make it as short as possible, then. The case of the prosecution was simple enough so far. Miss Kathleen Weir discovered that more than half her diamonds had been stolen and false ones substituted. She discovered this, as I told you, by taking some of them to a jeweler’s to dispose of—the defense made a point of this, as you will hear. Well, Miss Weir gave evidence that no one ever went into her jewel-case but her confidential maid, Margaret Johnstone. This woman had been in her service five years, and she completely trusted her. She admitted she sometimes left money lying about, but it was never touched. Margaret Johnstone used to take off Miss Weir’s jewels on her return from the theater, and restore them to the case, and bring them out the next day when they were required. Generally Miss Weir carried the key of her jewel-case with her, but sometimes she forgot it, and she remembered one night in particular Margaret Johnstone telling her she had done this. No suspicion, however, entered her mind as regards her maid. But no one else had access to the jewels, and when she discovered her loss she naturally told her story to the police, and Margaret Johnstone was arrested.
“The defense was peculiar. Margaret Johnstone admitted taking Miss Weir’s diamonds to a certain somewhat contraband diamond dealer, but by her mistress’ orders. This diamond dealer gave evidence. The woman on trial had from time to time brought diamond ornaments to him for sale. He was suspicious at first, he said, but Margaret Johnstone gave distinct answers. The diamonds belonged to her mistress, Miss Kathleen Weir, the actress, and she was short of ready money, and wished to sell the diamonds for the best price she could get, and have false diamonds substituted in their place in the same settings. He still hesitated, and requested the maid to bring a letter from her mistress authorizing him to carry out this project. This Margaret Johnstone did, and the dealer produced the letter in court, which Miss Weir swore was never written by her, but the handwriting slightly resembled her own.
“After this constant transactions took place between the diamond dealer and the maid. The dealer swore that he had paid thousands to Margaret Johnstone and received receipts for the money signed Kathleen Weir. He swore also he never doubted that he was dealing with the real owner of the jewels. ‘Many ladies,’ he said, ‘did the same thing, and the diamonds their husbands and friends gave them at their marriage were frequently exchanged in after years for fictitious ones.’
“Then the counsel for the defense pointed out that Miss Weir herself admitted she was going to try to dispose of some of her diamonds when the so-called fraud was discovered. This looked as though she was in the habit of doing so, and so on. This was the defense, but of course I have not told it in legal language. All the time, however, as I told you yesterday, I was sure we held the trump card, which was that in one of the woman’s boxes, after she was arrested, a half-finished letter was found. It was to a lover in Australia, asking him if he had received safely the eight hundred pounds she had forwarded to him by the last mail. ‘She will never be the wiser,’ Margaret Johnstone had written to the lover, ‘and the paste do quite as well for her as the real.’
“The handwriting of this letter, and the letter signed Kathleen Weir, held by the diamond dealer, and the receipts also signed Kathleen Weir, were then submitted to experts. These men decided they were all really written by the same person. To make a long story short, Margaret Johnstone totally broke down under cross-examination, and began crying hysterically.