He was well aware of Nina’s friendship—fondness he might call it—for Frank; her sympathy would most certainly be enlisted actively on the young man’s behalf immediately upon hearing of his position. At all hazards she must be kept quiet. Shortly before tiffin, he returned to the house. Calling Nina into the sitting-room, he shut the door and sat down.
“Nina,” he said, “I have some bad news for you. Don’t excite yourself, or make a fuss, but listen carefully and quietly to what I tell you, and then we’ll put our heads together and see what is best to be done.”
Nina turned pale. She feared some news of disaster to Otto’s business, which latterly, as she knew, had been none too flourishing. Otto went on:
“I heard, late last night, from an unexpected quarter, that the detective people had an inkling of an unregistered diamond in this house. You know very well what that means. I went to Frank Farnborough both late last night and early this morning. I begged and entreated him, for his own sake, for all our sakes, to go at once first thing this morning and hand over and declare the stone. This he refused to do, and in a very insulting way. I had no other course open, for my own safety and yours, but to give the information myself. I am afraid matters have been complicated by the discovery that the diamond is a De Beers stone, undoubtedly stolen. Frank is in a temporary mess, but we shall be able to get him out of the difficulty somehow.”
Nina had uttered a low cry of pain at the beginning of this speech. She knew too well the danger, and, as Otto went on, her heart seemed almost to stand still within her.
“Oh,” she gasped, “what is to be done? What shall we do? I must see Frank at once. Surely an explanation from us both should be sufficient to clear him?” She rose as she spoke.
“My dear Nina; first of all we must do nothing rash. We shall no doubt be easily able to get Frank out of his trouble. The thing is, of course, absurd. He has been a little foolish—as indeed we all have—that is all. For the present you must leave every thing to me. I don’t want to have your name dragged into the matter even for a day. If there is any serious trouble, you shall be consulted. Trust to me, and we shall make matters all right.”
By one pretext or another, Otto managed to keep his sister quiet, and to allay her worst fears, until two days after, by which time Frank had been sent for trial and was safely in prison. Nina had meanwhile fruitlessly endeavoured to possess her soul in patience. When Otto had come in that evening and told her of the news, “Why was I not called in evidence?” she asked fiercely. “Surely I could have done something for Frank. You seem to me to take this matter—a matter of life and death—with very extraordinary coolness. I cannot imagine why you have not done more. You know Frank is as innocent as we are ourselves. We ought to have moved heaven and earth to save him this dreadful degradation. What—what can he think of me? I shall go to-morrow and see his solicitors and tell them the whole of the facts!”
Next morning, Nina read an account of the proceedings in the newspaper. It was plainly apparent, from the report of Otto’s evidence, that there was something very wrong going on. She taxed her brother with it.
“My dear Nina, be reasonable,” he said. “Of course Frank has got into a desperate mess. I was not going to give myself away, because I happened to know, innocently, that he had an unregistered diamond for two or three days in his possession. I have since found out that Frank knew a good deal more of the origin of that diamond than I gave him credit for, and it was my plain duty to protect myself.”