"I locked the safe and returned to the breakfast-room.
"Lord Erstfield was standing by the hearth, talking to Captain Ponsonby—Lady Erstfield was reading the Times, and Violet was kneeling on the floor playing with her favourite pug. Their peaceful faces added to my misery. I know I must have looked wild and frightened—I know when I spoke that my voice must have shaken.
"'The diamonds are gone,' I said; 'they are not in the safe.'
"It was just as if I had flung a bomb into the midst of the cheerful party. Lord Erstfield drew himself up with a dazed expression. Captain Ponsonby turned white, and Lady Erstfield, with a sharp cry, rushed from the room, snatching the keys from my hand as she did so.
"'There is no use in Lady Erstfield examining the safe,' I said, 'the diamonds are certainly not there—I have searched all the shelves. The spot where I placed them yesterday is empty; the case has vanished.'
"'I don't believe it,' said Violet. 'The diamonds must be there. You must be mistaken, Beryl.'
"I made no reply, but when the others left the room I followed.
"We all now went up in a body to Lady Erstfield's room, and the safe was carefully examined by Lord Erstfield and Captain Ponsonby. The case containing the diamonds was indeed missing, but not another jewel, not even the smallest ring had been touched. There was no mark of the safe having been tampered with in any way, and as it was made on a perfectly unique pattern, and there was not supposed to be a key in the world to fit it, except the special ones made for it, the whole affair seemed buried in hopeless mystery. No one accused me in any way, and it never occurred to me, as I stood in that room, to accuse myself. We discussed the matter in all its bearings. We stood round the open safe and talked until we were tired. I described the exact position in which I had placed the case. Lady Erstfield was certain that from the moment I returned her the keys they had not been out of her possession until she had again placed them in my hands that morning.
"Finally we left the room in a state of hopeless bewilderment. Violet and I went away by ourselves, and, sitting down together, discussed the strange mystery from every point of view. The loss of the jewels had much excited her. She had regained her colour and her manner was quite animated.
"'I thought, at least, I should have the diamonds,' she said, with a queer sort of desolate echo in her voice, 'and I love diamonds: they seem to comfort me in the strangest way. I feel akin to them. When they sparkle and leap and glitter, they appear to me to be alive; they tell me secrets of the strange things they have witnessed in the course of their long existence. Think, if the Ponsonby diamonds could speak, what stories they could tell of the queer, queer things they have seen and heard; eh, Beryl?'