“I tell you, she’s been shoplifting.”
“More power to her,” Cullens said. “She’d make a grand shoplifter. I suppose George is on one of his bats?”
She nodded. Cullens said, “Mrs. Bedford telephoned me. She said she wanted her diamonds back. She’d tried to reach George on the telephone, and didn’t like the way she’d been talked to. She thought someone was giving her a run-around, so she called me. I knew right away what had happened. But i also knew that George would mail in the keys to his car and that your aunt would get into the vault and carry on the business. Now then, Lone Bedford has a customer who’s in the market for her stones. Naturally, she doesn’t want to lose the sale. She wants the stones and needs them now.”
Virginia Trent’s mouth became a firm, straight line. She raised her eyes defiantly and said, “I tell you, Aunt Sarah has been shoplifting. You laugh if you want to, but that happens to be the truth. If you want to know, you can ask Mr. Mason. While she’s had one of her spells, she’s taken Mrs. Bedford’s diamonds and hidden them.”
A perplexed frown appeared on Cullens’ forehead. “You’re not kidding me?” he asked, and then turned to Mason. At what he saw in the lawyer’s eyes, he said slowly, “Well, I’ll be damned!” He drew up a chair, selected a cigar from his waistcoat pocket, clipped off the end with a thin, gold knife and said to Virginia, “Tell me about it.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “Aunt Sarah has been laboring under a terrific emotional strain. Also, I think she’s suffering from a fixation. However, we don’t need to go into that now. There are periods during which she has a complete lapse of memory. During those times she becomes a kleptomaniac, taking anything she can get her hands on. She was caught in a department store this noon, and I had to check out nearly every penny in my bank to keep her from going to jail.”
Cullens lit his cigar, studied the flaming match for a moment in thoughtful contemplation, then shook it out, and said, “When was the first time, Virgie?”
“This noon.”
“Were those the first symptoms?”
“Well, she went up to the office yesterday and had a dizzy spell and couldn’t remember anything which had happened for about half an hour. When she came to, she had a peculiar feeling of guilt, as though she’d murdered someone. I think that was when she took the Bedford gems and concealed them somewhere. She...”