"My mother," put in Sylvia, softly.
"Yes," went on Beecot, quickly, "and this girl being lonely fell in love with Norman, as he now called himself. He wasn't an attractive man with his one eye, so it is hard to say how Miss Garner came to love him. But she married him in the end. You'll find everything explained at length in the paper we gave you. Then old Garner died, and Lillian inherited a considerable sum of money, together with the stock. Her husband removed the books to Gwynne Street and started business. But with the money he began to trade in jewels, and you know how he got on."
"That's all plain enough," said Hurd, putting the confession of Norman into his pocket. "I suppose the man dreaded lest his first wife should turn up."
"Yes! And that's why he fainted when he saw the brooch. Not knowing that Jessop had removed it from Maud's mouth and pawned it—"
"I'm not so sure of that," said Hurd, quickly. "Bart overheard him talking of Stowley and the pawnbroker there."
"Well," said Paul, with a shrug, "he says nothing about it in the confession. Perhaps he did trace the brooch to the Stowley shop, but if so, I wonder he did not get it, seeing he wanted it. But when he saw it in my possession, he thought I might know of Mrs. Krill and might put her on the track. Hence his fainting. Later, he learned how I became possessed of it, and tried to buy it. Then came the accident, and I really believed for a time that Hay had stolen it."
"Aurora says he swore he did not."
"And he didn't," said Paul, going to the door. "Mrs. Purr!"
"You don't mean to say that old woman prigged it?" asked Hurd.
"No. But she warned me against that boy Tray on the day Deborah was married. Later, I asked her what she meant, and she then told me that she had learned from Tray's grandmother, a drunken old thief, how the boy brought home the opal brooch, and—"