“Same like always—same necklace out of pearls, same rings, diamond and sapphire, two on one hand, one the other—I see them when she open that bag.”
“Mr. Bellamy was a person of moderate means, wasn’t he, as far as you know?”
“Oh, everybody what there is around here knows he wasn’t no John P. Rockfeller, I guess.”
“Do you believe that the stones were genuine?”
Mr. Orsini, thus appealed to as an expert, waxed eloquent and expansive. “Oh, positive. That I know for one absolute sure thing.”
“Tell us just how, won’t you?”
“Well, that house girl, Nellie, one night she tell me that Miz’ Bell’my have left one of her rings at the club where she wash her hands, but that Miz’ Bell’my just laugh and say she should worry herself, because all those rings and her pearls they are insure big, and if she lose those, she go out and buy herself a new house and a auto car, and maybe a police dog too.”
“I see. Had it ever occurred to you that Mrs. Bellamy was using the cottage at Orchards for other purposes than piano practice, Mr. Orsini?”
Orsini’s smile flashed so generously that it revealed three really extravagant gold fillings. “Well, me, I don’t miss many things, maybe you guess. After she get that key three-four times, I think to myself, ‘Luigi, it is funny thing that nevair she give you back that key until the day after, and always those evenings she go out by herself—most generally when Mr. Bell’my he stay in town to work.’ So one of those nights when she ask for that key I permit myself to take a small little stroll up the road in Orchards, and sure thing, there is a light in that cottage and a auto car outside the door. Sufficient! I look no further. Me, I am a man of the world, you comprehend.”
“Obviously.”