She alluded to a ring at the visitors’ bell. One of the servants came in and said that the gentleman who had called once or twice before had come again.
Miss Deveen looked up, first at the servant, then at me. She seemed to be considering.
“I will see him in two or three minutes, George”—and the man shut the door.
“Johnny,” she said, “I have taken you partly into my confidence in this affair of the lost studs; I think I will tell you a little more. After I sent for Lettice Lane here—and my impression, as I told you, was very strongly in favour of her innocence—it occurred to me that I ought to see if anything could be done to prove it; or at least to set the matter at rest, one way or the other, instead of leaving it to time and chance. The question was, how could I do it? I did not like to apply to the police, lest more should be made of it than I wished. One day a friend of mine, to whom I was relating the circumstances, solved the difficulty. He said he would send to me some one with whom he was well acquainted, a Mr. Bond, who had once been connected with the detective police, and who had got his dismissal through an affair he was thought to have mismanaged. It sounded rather formidable to my ears, ‘once connected with the detective police;’ but I consented, and Mr. Bond came. He has had the thing in hand since last February.”
“And what has he found out?”
“Nothing, Johnny. Unless he has come to tell me now that he has—for it is he who is waiting. I think it may be so, as he has called so early. First of all, he was following up the matter down in Worcestershire, because the notion he entertained was, that the studs must have been taken by one of the Whitneys’ servants. He stayed in the neighbourhood, pursuing his inquiries as to their characters and habits, and visiting all the pawnbrokers’ shops that he thought were at available distances from the Hall.”
“Did he think it was Lettice Lane?”
“He said he did not: but he took care (as I happen to know) to worm out all he could of Lettice’s antecedents while he was inquiring about the rest. I had the girl in this room at his first visit, not alarming her, simply saying that I was relating the history of the studs’ disappearance to this friend who had called, and desired her to describe her share in it to make the story complete. Lettice suspected nothing; she told the tale simply and naturally, without fear: and from that very moment, Johnny, I have felt certain in my own mind the girl is as innocent as I am. Mr. Bond ‘thought she might be,’ but he would not go beyond that; for women, he said, were crafty, and knew how to make one think black was white.”
“Miss Deveen, suppose, after all, it should turn out to have been Lettice?” I asked. “Should you proceed against her?”
“I shall not proceed against any one, Johnny; and I shall hush the matter up if I can,” she answered, ringing for Mr. Bond to be shown in.