"Why should you?" asked Beatrice, rather surprised by this gushing reception, and mistrusting its truth.
"Oh, there are a thousand reasons. I'll tell you them later. Come, my dearest child, take off your jacket and hat, and----"
"No, Lady Watson. I have only come for a short visit I want you to get me a situation as a governess, and----"
"A governess with your beauty!" cried the little woman; "what nonsense! Let me look at you, dearest"; and she pulled up the near blind to let in the sunlight on the girl. It made Beatrice look like an angel, and Lady Watson aged in the golden splendour at least a dozen years.
"Oh, you are lovely, lovely! Why, what are you looking at? Oh, at my necklace! Beautiful diamonds are they not?"
"Yes." Beatrice, with white lips, recognised the necklace at once as that stolen by Maud Paslow. "But where did you get it?"
"Why do you ask that?" questioned Lady Watson sharply.
"It is the Obi necklace. You got it from Maud Orchard--from Vivian's wife."
"I--that is--what do you mean?" stammered Lady Watson, growing pale under her rouge. "It is mine--mine. Mr. Alpenny gave it to me."
"No. You are in this plot too. You know about the murder. I shall tell the police, I shall----" Beatrice, hardly knowing what she did, was about to rush from the room when Lady Watson stopped her.