“But why not have put the jewel in a bank or one of the safe deposits? Surely it was risky to have entrusted it to a girl of whom you knew nothing?”
“My friend,”, said the dancer, “I was desperate. Mortimer sees and knows all. This unexpected meeting with the daughter of my old friend seemed at the moment like a heaven-sent chance to place the jewel, unknown to him, in safe hands. I felt that as long as I carried it on me, my life was in constant danger. It was only to-day, when I heard of the murder, that it dawned on me how indiscreet I had been. I might have guessed, since Miss Mackwayte knew Mortimer—”
“Miss Mackwayte knows Mortimer?” echoed Desmond in stupefaction.
“But certainly,” replied Nur-el-Din. “Was it not I myself—” She broke off suddenly with terror in her eyes.
“Ah, no!” she whispered. “It is enough. Already I have said too much...”
Desmond was about to speak when the door opened and a foreign-looking maid, whom Desmond remembered to have seen in the dancer’s dressing-room, came in. She went swiftly to her mistress and whispered something in her ear.
The dancer sprang to her feet.
“A little moment... you will excuse me...” she cried to Desmond and ran from the room. The maid followed her, leaving Desmond alone.
Presently, the sound of Nur-el-Din’s voice raised high in anger struck on his ears. He stole softly to the door and opened it. Before him lay the staircase deserted. He tiptoed down the stairs to the first landing and listened. The murmur of voices reached him indistinctly from the room below. Then he heard Nur-el-Din crying out again in anger.
He craned his ear over the well of the staircase, turning his face to the window which stood on the landing. The window gave on a small yard with a gate over which a lamp was suspended and beyond it the fen now swathed in fog. The dancer’s maid stood beneath the lamp in earnest conversation with a man in rough shooting clothes who held a gun under his arm. As Desmond looked the man turned his head so that the rays of the lamp fell full upon his face. To his unspeakable consternation and amazement, Desmond recognized Strangwise.