And Mr. Gilsey answered:
“The manner of operating sounds like her, I must admit.”
“She was in Chicago when last heard of,” says Mr. Brison, stopping in his scribbling, “but we’ve information within the last week that she’s left there.”
“Laura the Lady is in London,” Mr. Gilsey remarked, looking at his finger nails. “I saw her three weeks ago at Earlscourt.”
Mr. Brison got red in the face and puffed out his lips, as if he was going to say something, but decided not to. He scribbled some more, and then, looking at what he had written as if he was reading it over, says:
“If that’s the case, there’s very little doubt as to who planned and executed this robbery.”
“That’s a very comfortable state of affairs to arrive at,” says Mr. Gilsey, “and I hope it’s the correct one.” And that was all he said that time about what he thought.
After this we stayed on at Burridge’s for the rest of the season, but it was not half as cheerful or gay as it had been before. My lord was often moody and cross, for he felt the loss of the diamonds bitterly; and my lady was out of spirits and moped, for she was very fond of him, and to have him take it this way seemed to upset her. Mr. Brison or Mr. Gilsey were constantly popping in and murmuring in the sitting-room, but they got no further on—at least, there was no talk of finding the diamonds, which was all that counted.
This is all I know of the theft of the necklace. What happened at that time, and what Mr. Gilsey calls “the surrounding circumstances of the case,” I have tried to put down as clearly and as simply as possible. I have gone over them so often, and been forced to be so careful, that I think they will be found to be quite correct in every particular.
Statement of Lilly Bingham, known
in England as Laura Brice, in the
United States as Frances Latimer,
to the police of both countries as
Laura the Lady, besides having recently
figured as a housemaid at
Burridge’s Hotel, London, under the
alias of Sara Dwight.