"This is not the bracelet!" he said. There was no smack of affection in his tone now; it was wholly hostile. His patience was exhausted. "Lady Linacre's was a diamond bracelet of great value, as you know," he said. "This is a plain gold thing worth two or three pounds. For Heaven's sake, man!" he added with sudden vehemence, "for your own sake, don't play the fool now! Where is the bracelet?"
Doubtless despair had benumbed Wibberley's mind, for he did not reply, and Burton Smith had to put his question more than once before he got an answer. When Wibberley at last looked up it was with a dazed face. "What is it?" he muttered, avoiding the other's eyes.
"This is not Lady Linacre's bracelet."
"That's not?"
"No; certainly not."
Still confused, still shunning the other's look, Wibberley rose, took the bracelet in his hand, and frowned at it. Burton Smith saw him start.
"It is of the same shape," the barrister repeated, ice in his voice--he thought the exchange a foolish, transparent artifice--worse than the theft. "But Lady Linacre's has a large brilliant where that has a plain boss. That is not the bracelet."
Wibberley turned away, the thing in his hand, and went to the window, and stood there a long moment looking out into the darkness. The curtains were not drawn. As he stood, otherwise motionless, his shoulders trembled so violently that a dreadful suspicion seized his late host, who desisted from watching him and looked about, but in vain, for a phial or a glass.
At the end of the minute Wibberley turned. For the first time he confronted his visitor. His eyes were bright, his face very pale; but his mouth was set and firm. "I never said it was!" he answered.
"Was what?" the other cried impatiently.