“The description and the picture caught my eye before I read about the diamonds. Therefore I never thought of my previous suspicions of my wife, except to be thankful that they had been proved groundless.”
“Why did you suspect her at first?”
“In one word, because it seemed utterly impossible that anybody else should have done it. The theory of burglars would not hold water. One of my servants had been ill, and had been about the house with a light almost all night, and had seen nothing of robbers.”
“Did you tell the servants of your loss?”
“No; I questioned them without letting them know anything unusual had happened.”
“They have been the guilty ones.”
Parks shook his head.
“I watched them all. They were honest. Then I learned that my wife speculated in stocks. There are more women stock gamblers in New York than most people could be made to believe.
“She had wasted her private fortune, and had got all the money she could from me. Heaven knows that I did not begrudge it. I only asked for her confidence, but she would not give it to me.”