Pamela cleared her throat and said in a tone that tried hard to be indifferent and casual.
"Mother thinks--I've stolen that brooch--and told a lie--because----" stifled silence ensued.
"Well," said Hughie, "that's very ridiculous."
"Not when you hear--what it's about----" again there was a pause, then starting on a lower note altogether Pamela said:
"Mother wanted to hear about the brooch, Addie made her. So, after a week, you see, she wrote to Miss Ashington and asked what had happened and if it was hers--I mean if the brooch was. This morning Auntie A. sent down a note--all scrawly and covered with blots and half the words left out as usual," this description was emphasized bitterly, "and she said--she said that I fetched the brooch on the same evening you and Miss Chance took it--you remember, Midget, a week ago to-day."
"I know," agreed Hughie, "the morning Charles ate the laurel water."
"Yes, well she says, I came in the evening about nine, or half-past nine, and said Mother sent me for the brooch, and she gave it to me--she says a good deal more; something about her work-basket being upset; but anyway I took the brooch away, and there's an end to it."
"Why, it was the girl--my goodness, she's a funny person!" said Hughie.
"She's a beast. She's a perfect beast without any decency or sense of honour," declared Pamela in a stormy burst of indignation. "I told her to write to Sir Marmaduke and ask him to claim it from Auntie A. It was perfectly simple. Then she goes and plays this low trick again."
"You'd better tell about her," suggested Hughie with interest.