British Murder Mysteries – 10 Novels in One Volume. Charles Norris Williamson

look at that beautiful enamel brooch of yours?"

      It was Annesley's impulse to step back as without waiting for permission the narrow head, sleekly brushed and slightly bald at the top, bent over her laces. But she remembered herself in time and stood still. She dared not glance at Knight, to send him a message of encouragement, but she knew that for once even his resourcefulness had failed, and that he must be steeling himself to the brutal discovery of his secret.

      Yet even then she did not guess what Ruthven Smith's plan was until the thing had happened. He peered at the brooch, which represented a bunch of grapes in small cabochon amethysts and leaves of green enamel. Adjusting his eyeglasses, they slipped from his nose and fell on the lace of her fichu.

      "Oh, how awkward of me! A thousand pardons!" he cried. Making a nervous grab for the glasses, which hung from a chain, he snatched up her chain as well, and with a quick jerk of seeming inadvertence wrenched from its warm hiding-place a ring with a flash of brilliants and a glint of blue.

      Annesley's heart had given one great throb and then missed a beat, for there had been an awful instant as the "plan" developed when she feared that the ring with the blue diamond might, after all her pains, have become entangled with the chain. If it had, the violence of the jerk might have brought it to light.

      But she had accomplished her task well. She could afford to smile, though her lips trembled, as she saw the bird-of-prey look fade from Ruthven Smith's face and turn into bewildered humiliation.

      Right was on his side; yet he had the air of a culprit, and some wild strain in Annesley's nature which had been asleep till that instant sang a song of triumph in the victory of her "plan" over his. How delighted Knight would be, and how amazed and grateful—grateful as he had been when she "stood by him" with the watchers!

      As Ruthven Smith stammered apologies her eyes flashed to Knight's; but there was none of the defiant laughter she had expected, and felt bound to reproach him for later.

      He was pale, and though his immense power of self-control kept him in check, Annesley shrank almost with horror from the fury of rage against Ruthven Smith which she read in her husband's gaze and the beating of the veins in his temples.

      Terrified lest his anger should break out in words, she hurried on to say what she would have said before the sudden move by the jewel expert.

      "Here is the sapphire ring you asked about, Knight," she said. "I was just going to take off this chain and give it to you to show to the Duke when——"

      "When Mr. Ruthven Smith took an unwarrantable liberty," Knight finished the sentence icily.

      "I—I meant nothing. Really, I can't tell you how I regret——" the wretched man stuttered. But Knight was without mercy.

      "Pray don't try any further," he cut in. "My wife is not a figurine in a shop window to have her ornaments stared at and pawed over. You are an old friend of hers, Mr. Ruthven Smith, and you are my guest—or rather my friend Annesley-Seton's guest—therefore I will say no more. But in some countries where I have lived such an incident would have ended differently."

      "Oh, please, Knight!" exclaimed Annesley, thankful that at least he had spoken his harsh words in so low a voice that no one outside their own group of three could hear. But she was shocked out of her brief exultation by his white rage and the depths revealed by the lightning flash of anger. Also she was sorry for Ruthven Smith, even while she resented the plot which it was evident he had come to carry out.

      With unsteady hands she lifted the delicate chain over her hair and gave it to her husband.

      "The ring is rather large for my finger. Here it is for you to show to the Duke," she reminded him.

      "Thank you, Anita," he said. And she knew that he thanked her for more than what she gave him.

      "I am a thousand times sorry," Ruthven Smith persisted. "More sorry than I can ever explain, or you will ever know."

      "Indeed it was nothing," the girl comforted him in her soft young voice. But she read in his words a hidden meaning, as she had read one into Knight's. She did know that which he believed she would never know: the meaning of his act, and the effort it had cost to screw his courage to the sticking place.

      Also, as the star sapphire with its sparkle of diamonds had flashed into sight, she had seemed to read his mind. She guessed he must be telling himself that his informant—the Countess, or some other—had mistaken one blue stone for another.

      "Let's go and join Constance and the Duchess," she went on, quietly. "They're looking at some lovely things you will like to see. And you must forget that Knight was cross. He has lived in wild places, and he has a hot temper."

      "I deserved what I got, I'm afraid," murmured Ruthven Smith.

      "After all, nothing exciting seems likely to happen to-night in this room, in spite of the Countess's prophecy," said Constance. "Perhaps it may be to-morrow or Monday."

      "I hope nothing more exciting will happen then than to-night!" Annesley exclaimed, with a kindly glance at her companion. She pitied him, but she pitied herself more, for by and by she and Knight would have to talk this thing out together.

      For the first time she dreaded the moment of being alone with her husband. There was a stain of clay on the feet of her idol, and though she had helped him to hide it from other eyes, nothing could be right between them again until she had told him what she thought—until he had promised to make restitution somehow of the thing he should never have possessed.