“Sophie Chalk suggested the same thing to me to-day. But a visitor would not do such a thing. Fancy a lady stealing jewels!”
“The open box might prove a strong temptation. People do things in such moments, Johnny, that they would fly from at other times.”
“Sophie said that too. You have been talking together.”
“I have not exchanged a word with Sophie Chalk on the subject. The ideas might occur naturally to any of us.”
I did not think it at all likely to have been a visitor. How should a visitor know there was an open jewel-box in Miss Deveen’s room? The chamber, too, was an inner one, and therefore not liable to be entered accidentally. To get to it you had to go through Miss Cattledon’s.
“The room is not easy of access, you know, Anna.”
“Not very. But it might be reached.”
“I say, are you saying this for any purpose?”
She turned round and looked at me rather sharply.
“Yes. Because I do not believe it was Lettice Lane.”