"I'd give half my pension to know how that thing is worked," said Berrington. "A moment ago there was nothing on that table, and now look at it! It would have taken the staff of a large hotel half an hour to arrange a meal like that. The flowers alone would have occupied the time. The servants here——"
"You may bet your life that the servants know nothing about it," Field said. "They have been sent away right enough. I feel quite sure that they are innocent of everything. It would never do to let domestics talk of these matters."
The Rajah was pacing up and down the dining-room talking to himself. A moment later there was a rattle of a latchkey and two people came in. The first was a young man with the unmistakable stamp of the actor on him, smart, well groomed, clean shaven, the society actor of to-day. He was followed by an exceedingly
pretty, fair-haired woman, who might have belonged to the same profession. Just for the moment it occurred to Field that these were ordinary guests who knew nothing of the mystery of the house. There was nothing about either of them to connect them with crime or mystery.
They pitched their wraps carelessly on the hall table as if they had been there before, and made their way to the dining-room. The Rajah's face grew eager.
"Well, my children," he said in excellent English, "have you had any luck? Cora, dear, tell me that you have succeeded in our little counterplot."
The woman's pretty face grew hard. She pulled a chair up to the table and sat down.
"Give me some of that pâté and open a bottle of champagne," she said. "What with this doubling about and covering up one's tracks, I've had no time to think of food. The same remark applies to poor Reggie here. Haven't we succeeded well enough for you?"
"Well, yes, you managed the big thing all right, but that's not everything. You managed the big thing so well that the police are utterly baffled and don't know which way to look. But the stones, carissima, the sparkling stones. What of them?"
The woman gave a shrug of her ivory shoulders. She could be plainly seen by the watchers lost in the darkness of the drawing-room.