“We sailed from New York, June 22,” affirmed the purser.
“I want, therefore,” continued the captain, “to ask you all to preserve silence about this affair until it has been thoroughly sifted. I believe the knowledge of the theft is confined to those present.”
“Quite so, sir,” agreed the purser.
“May I ask how it happened?” Staff put in.
The captain swung on his heel and bowed to Alison. She bent forward, telling her story with brevity and animation.
“You remember”—she looked at Staff—“when we met in the saloon, about half-past five, and went on deck?... Well, right after that, Jane left my rooms to return the hat you had been showing me to your steward. She was gone not over five minutes, and she swears the door was locked all the time; she remembers locking it when she went out and unlocking it when she returned. There was no indication that anybody had been in the rooms, except one that we didn’t discover until I started to go to bed, a little while ago. Then I thought of my jewels. They were all kept in this handbag”—she dropped a hand upon a rather small Lawrence bag of tan leather on the table before her—“under my bed, behind the steamer trunk. I told Jane to see if it was all right. She got it out, and then we discovered that this had happened to it.”
She turned the bag so that the other side was presented for inspection, disclosing the fact that some sharp instrument had been used to cut a great flap out of the leather, running in a rough semicircle from clasp to clasp of the frame.
“It wasn’t altogether empty,” she declared with a trace of wonder in her voice; “but that only makes it all the more mysterious. All my ordinary jewels were untouched; nothing had been taken except the case that held the Cadogan collar.”
“And the collar itself, I hope?” Iff put in quietly.
The actress turned upon him with rising colour.