Ethel, who had been into the house, rejoined us at the moment and Margaret ran to show the diamond to her, and tell her of its recovery.
“Why, I didn’t know even you’d lost it, why ever didn’t you let us know? We would have organized a search party at once. I shouldn’t have been so quiet about it if I’d lost a stone that size.”
“I should have done that at any other time, my dear,” Margaret answered; “but it seemed so petty to make a fuss over the loss of a paltry diamond when things were so—you know what I mean.”
“Well, I’m awfully glad you’ve found it,” Ethel said, handing it back to her, “and now, Janet, if you can spare me a few minutes, I want to consult you about something.”
They went indoors arm in arm, and the four of us were left. Kenneth suggested bridge, and so we whiled away the time until dinner. That meal was so abominably cooked that we left most of the dishes untouched, and satisfied our hunger on bread and cheese, which Ethel, in high annoyance, told Annie to fetch. “What will you think of us, Janet, and on your first night too!”
“Oh, please don’t distress yourself on my account, I prefer bread and cheese to roast beef on a night like this.”
“It’s quite all right, Ethel dear,” Margaret soothed. “They say you don’t want so much meat in hot weather, don’t they, Dr. Wallace?”
Our dinner of bread and cheese completed, the doctor betook himself to the consulting-room again, and after a little maneuvering I found myself alone with Mrs. Kenley in the garden. As my doubts about The Tundish grew, I felt an increasing disinclination for conversation with Ethel and on the other hand I had no wish to ally myself in any way with Kenneth and his open hostility. Margaret, I shrewdly suspected, was more than half inclined to think that I might be the criminal myself, and it seemed that to Mrs. Kenley alone could I look for ordinary unhampered conversation. But I had no sooner succeeded in my object than Annie came to inform her that she was wanted on the telephone, and she hurried away indoors. I waited with what patience I could but she did not return, and after a quarter of an hour or so I followed in search. She was in none of the down-stairs rooms and I concluded that she must have gone to her bedroom. The boys were playing chess in the drawing-room. Neither the girls nor the doctor were to be seen, and after glancing through the evening papers I went back to the garden and its rapidly lengthening shadows.
I was nearing the garage when I heard voices. Ethel and Margaret, I thought at first. Then I recognized Mrs. Kenley’s pleasant low contralto. Then that the other voice belonged to a man—a deep mellow voice—a voice belonging neither to Kenneth nor Ralph, nor the doctor, but still half familiar. Surely not Allport, I thought! But it was.
As I rounded the end of the garage, there they were seated close together on the little bench at the far side of it, in intimate and earnest conversation. She was persuasive—leaning toward him. “Very well then, Janet, I’ll agree, but I’m not at all happy about it,” I heard him reply, then they looked up and saw me.