“I’m still frightened. Oh, Judy! Judy!” cried Lorraine. “How can I ever explain things to Arthur?”
“What is there to explain?” he asked coldly. “Peter has given me all the facts.”
“I don’t mean facts!” Lorraine cried. “You see, Judy, he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to listen when I try to tell him. He says he’s heard enough about that terrible gangster. He could have killed you, Judy—”
“He didn’t, Lorraine. I’m very much alive.”
“He killed something else then. He killed Arthur’s love for me. That beautiful ring was a symbol of his love, and I gave it to that awful man. I thought I had to keep him quiet. I don’t expect either of you to believe it, but when Falco telephoned me and made all those threats, I thought he’d expose Arthur and the whole family would be disgraced if I didn’t give him the ruby. Then he said it wasn’t enough, and I went back and gave him more of my jewelry. He called himself Falco and said he was fighting crime.”
“Who was I?” asked Arthur. “The criminal?”
“Well, no—not exactly, but he did make me think you were cheating people, misrepresenting everything, building all those new houses in Roulsville and even the Farringdon post office, out of defective materials.”
“You believed all that—of me, Lorraine?”
She admitted it with a nod. Tears were streaming down her face. Judy tried to comfort her. But she said the wrong thing. She mentioned the ring, only to learn that the police had been unable to recover any of the jewelry Lorraine had foolishly given to Falco.
“That ruby has caused a lot of grief,” Arthur said bitterly. He seemed stunned by Lorraine’s confession. They kept looking at each other as if they were strangers instead of the devoted couple Judy had believed them to be. Finally Arthur said, “We’d better go now. We shouldn’t have upset you with our problems, Judy. May I apologize for both of us?”