Anna opened the dining-room door, and was greeted by a chorus of shrieks and squawks through which Miss Willy could be heard screaming, first at her and then at the noisy parrot.
“Come in! Shut the door! Shut the door! Be quiet, Archibald!-Archibald! Will you be quiet! Shut that door, or Rollo will get out! Where is he? Rollo, where are you? Oh, come in-come in! And mind don’t step on Augustus-he’s somewhere about, but I don’t know where.”
Anna’s color became noticeably less decorative. She had no affection for creatures, and on any other occasion she would have fled. She cast an anxious look about the room. Archibald always bit her if he could; but he had reached the curtain pole, where he stood clapping his wings and improvising a very fair imitation of a whining dog. The macaw really terrified her; but he appeared to be engaged in a careful toilet with one wing stretched out to its fullest extent and all his brilliant blue and yellow and crimson a-dazzle in the sun which shone straight into the room. Augustus made her feel sick, but as she looked about for him, she saw him run up Miss Willy’s dress and come to rest upon her shoulder. Miss Willy said, “Did’ums, the bad boy?” and Anna hastily pulled the nearest chair to a safe distance and sat down. Rollo had gone under the table, and the parakeets were climbing ceaselessly over the outside of their cage.
“I hope you don’t mind my coming when you’re so busy,” Anna began in a deprecating tone. “I know you are always busy in the morning, and so am I, but I thought I might just slip down for a minute whilst Isobel was talking to Corinna. I do so want to ask you about Lydia Pratt.”
“Don’t talk of her!” said Miss Willy with a snort. “A bad, ungrateful girl if there ever was one! We got her a good place between us, and she’s leaving at the month because she’s only allowed out once a week. I can’t think what girls are coming to!”
On almost any other day Lydia Pratt’s enormities would have taken at least half an hour to discuss, but on this particular morning Miss Willy had no intention of wasting time on Lydia. If Anna had not come to see her, she would within the hour have been on her way to see Anna, armed as likely as not with the same excuse. However that might be, Lydia Pratt had now definitely served her turn.
With Augustus sitting up on her shoulder industriously washing his whiskers, Miss Willy turned and faced her caller.
“Never mind Lydia,” she said, “I’ve heard a most extraordinary rumor, and I want to know if it’s true.”
“What have you heard?” asked Anna quickly.
“That you’ve had a burglary. Anna-you don’t say it’s true-not really? I couldn’t believe it!”
“But how did you hear? We haven’t told any one. Uncle John-”
“You haven’t told the police?”
“Not the local police. Uncle John rang up Scotland Yard.”
“Who of course communicated with the local people- now didn’t they?”
“Well-you won’t repeat this, Miss Willy-we have had an inspector from Southerley to see us. Uncle John wasn’t very pleased about it. I think he wishes now that he had waited-employed a private detective or-oh, don’t take any notice of what I’m saying! It’s all very, very distressing. Uncle John is quite ill. We don’t want it talked about.”
“Now what’s the good of saying that? You want the widest possible publicity-then every one in the community is on the look out and can help you to catch your thief. You ought to have a description of whatever has been stolen circulated to all police stations, and pawnbrokers, and-and- people of that sort.” She made a wide gesture with her hand which startled Augustus a good deal and made Cyril the macaw interrupt his toilet and fix her with a bright glassy stare.
“I believe that has been done,” said Anna. “I wish-oh, I wish it hadn’t!”
“Nonsense!” said Miss Willy. “The more publicity the better-you can’t have too much.”
“How did you hear about it?”
“Joskins brought the first rumor with the afternoon milk. I suppose he’d just been up to Linwood House.”
“But the servants didn’t know-we didn’t tell them.”
Miss Willy sniffed.
“Joskins knew. He said it was the Queen Anne bow that had gone. It is? Then he was right! Just that and nothing more. I’d have come up yesterday myself, only I had an old engagement to go out to tea at Wood End with Lady Silver, and she kept me and kept me to see her sister who was coming down by train, and in the end she never came, and I didn’t get home till half-past seven, and the telephone has been out of order for two days-they’d only just got it right when Corinna rang Isobel up. It was most tantalizing, because of course I was simply dying to hear all about it. Was the house broken into? Joskins said not, but Mrs. Hoylake told me that Annie’s young man-not Brent, but the new one-his name is Mullins and he drives one of the vans of those big grocery people in Southerley-what’s their name-Downings-well, he told Annie that his cousin, Ernest Mullins, who’s in the police, told him that the Inspector told him in confidence that he shouldn’t wonder if it was an inside job.”
Anna leaned back in her chair. The room swam for a moment. Suppose they thought-suppose they guessed. No- no! She dug her nails into the palm of her hand. It was Car who was going to be suspected-Car who must be suspected, now that things had gone so far. She was quite safe really. The jewel would be found on Car, and then Dr. Monk would remember that he had seen him in Linwood at midnight. What a blessing she had thought of Dr. Monk! He would remember quite a lot of useful things-Uncle John’s sudden illness; her own agitation; the disturbed bureau; the keys lying where some one had flung them down. She recovered her self-possession.
“What’s the matter?” said Miss Willy.
“It’s been-such a shock,” she faltered. “I-I can’t bear to talk about it. Dear Miss Willy-you’re so kind-you’ll understand there are-reasons why I can’t talk about it.”
“Not one of the servants?” said Miss Willy breathlessly. “Why, they’ve all been with you at least five years, except Gladys Brown, and her people are so respectable that I couldn’t believe-though of course where young men are concerned you never can tell-only she’s walking out with that particularly nice George Alton. Don’t say it’s Gladys!”
“Oh, no.”
“Though of course having been with you for years doesn’t really prove anything, because my cousin Wilfred Earl’s mother-in-law had a butler for sixteen years and never knew that she only got half the cigars that were down in her bill-but Wilfred assured me it was a fact. But of course cigars are one thing, and an heirloom is quite another pair of shoes. Was there anything else taken?”
Anna shook her head. The telegram ought to arrive soon-Bobby was to have sent it off half an hour ago. She looked at the half-opened parcel lying on the table against the parakeet’s cage.
“Has any one been sending you a present?” she asked with the forced lightness of some one who must at any cost change the subject.
“No-I don’t know-I haven’t opened it-I don’t know what it is.” Miss Willy picked up the wrapping and turned it this way and that. “I can’t make head or tail of the postmark, and I don’t know the writing-though of course that’s nothing to go by, because one’s pen always sticks so on brown paper, and it simply ruins the nib. No-I can’t think who it can be from.”
“Why don’t you open it?” suggested Anna.
“Well,” said Miss Willy, “there’s something fascinating about guessing. I always think I should have made a good detective-you may have noticed that I am very observant. The other day, when I was visiting Mrs. Pratt, I knew at once that Lydia was leaving Mrs. Greenway. I didn’t wait for her to tell me. I walked in and sat down and said straight away, ‘Now what’s all this, Mrs. Pratt?’ And she couldn’t believe that some one hadn’t told me. And I said to her, ‘Well, they haven’t-but when I see a letter from Lydia lying open in your work-box with things like “lots of good places” and “home Thursday week” staring me in the face, I can put two and two together without requiring any one to tell me that they make four. And if I’m to say what I think, Mrs. Pratt,’ I said, ‘Lydia is a bad, ungrateful girl, and she wants a good scolding, and not to be spoilt and made much of the way you’ve always done, and I only hope you won’t live to regret it when it’s too late-and then perhaps you’ll remember that I warned you, Mrs. Pratt.’ ”