She glanced down at the trellised diamonds and said,
“How should I know?”
If it was meant for a question, there was no direct answer.
“Then I can continue to show off. My little book mentions these bracelets. Napoleon gave them to Josephine on rather a special occasion. Just turn to the inside of the clasp and you will see the N surmounted by the imperial crown.”
There was no interest in face or manner as she turned the clasp. The crowned N looked at her from the pale gold.
Gregory Porlock had come over to stand beside her.
“Now turn it and you’ll see the date at the other end of the clasp, rather faint but legible-Fri. 10. 1804.”
She said, “What does it mean?”
“The tenth of Frimaire, eighteen hundred and four. That is, December the first, the date on which Josephine at last induced Napoleon to go through the religious ceremony of marriage with her. He cheated, because by deliberately omitting the presence of the parish priest he left a loophole of which he availed himself later on when he applied for a declaration of nullity. The bracelets were a wedding present. The imperial N is there because December the first was the eve of their coronation. Didn’t you really know the story?”
She looked up with a startling anger in her eyes.
“What has it got to do with me?”
He went back to the fire.
“I can tell you that too. Josephine died in eighteen-fourteen. The bracelets are not specifically mentioned in her will. In fact they disappear for about forty years, when the second Earl of Pemberley bought them in Paris as a wedding present for his bride. Where they had been in the interval does not transpire, but Lord Pemberley was, apparently, satisfied as to their history, and they have been handed down in the family ever since. The title is now extinct, but the widow of the last Earl survives. You are connected with her, I think, through your mother.”
“So that is why I am supposed to know about the bracelets!”
He nodded.
“We are getting to the point. About ten years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Lady Pemberley at a charity ball-she was one of the patronesses. Imagine my interest when I saw that she was wearing the Josephine bracelets. I ventured to remark on them, and when she found that I knew their history she was kind enough to take them off and show me the initial and the date-the same on each. So you see, when I encountered the bracelet which you have in your hand-”
She broke in with a raised voice, “What has this got to do with me?”
“I’m boring you? I’ve really almost done. A friend of mine who knows my hobby told me he had come across a bracelet of very beautiful workmanship. I went to see it, and of course recognized it at once. I needn’t tell you the name of the shop, because of course you know it. What you probably didn’t know was that the proprietor knew perfectly well from whom he was buying the bracelet. You see, you figure quite a lot in the Society papers, and he recognized you. In point of fact, he would not have bought so valuable a piece of jewellery, from an unknown client. Knowing your family connections, he did not hesitate.”
There was a long pause during which he watched an averted face-brows drawn together, lips pressed into a rigid line.
When he thought the silence had lasted long enough he broke it.
“I’m your friend, you know. There’s no need to look like that.”
The colour rushed back into her face. She swung round on him, eyes wide and glowing.
“Greg-”
His smile had never been more charming.
“That’s better!”
“Greg-she gave it to me. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking-”
He laughed.
“Well, I bought it. I won’t tell you what I paid, because there’s always a revolting difference between the buying and the selling price, and I don’t want to rub it in. Anyhow, now it’s my property there’s nothing to stop my making a gesture and sending it back to Lady Pemberley, is there?”
“You can’t do that! I naturally don’t want her to know I sold it.”
“Oh, naturally! Have you got the other one-or did you sell that too?”
“She only gave me one.”
He shook his head.
“My dear girl, it won’t do. You know, and I know. And you know that I know. What’s the good of keeping up this farce? If I were to go to Lady Pemberley and say that I had recognized her bracelet in a sale room, what do you suppose would happen? There would be a bit of a crash, wouldn’t there? She wouldn’t run you in-oh, no! We don’t wash our dirty linen in public. But I think Miss Lane’s name would come out of Lady Pemberley’s will, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t get round the family that dear Moira had spilt rather a lot of ink on her copybook. In fact, in the language of melodrama, ‘Social Ruin Looms.’ ”
Moira Lane got to her feet. She put the bracelet down on the corner of the writing-table and said rather quietly,
“What good would that do you?”
He could admire her, and he did. Courage appealed to him, and the breeding which set him at a distance. She wouldn’t cry or make any appeal, she wouldn’t break. He looked at her approvingly.
“That’s where we really get down to brass tacks. And the answer is, it wouldn’t do me any good at all. There’s nothing in the world I want less than to hurt you. All I want is for us to stop playing comedies and get to business.”
“What business?”
He came up to the table and gave her another cocktail.
“Better have a drink. You look played out. Now, Moira, listen! I could ruin you. But why should I want to? I don’t. I admire you very much, and I like to think that we are friends. I’ll go farther and tell you I’d like to have you as a partner.”
Standing there, glass in hand, she looked at him with a little scorn. She finished her cocktail, put the glass back on the tray, and waited, her eyebrows delicately raised.
He stood perhaps a yard away, easy and smiling.
“I told you I was a collector of odd bits of information. When people know you like them they come your way, sometimes in a very surprising manner. But that sort of thing has to be very carefully checked. It doesn’t do to slip up. Some of it-rather an important part-comes from the circles of which you are a privileged member. Exclusive circles, very intimately linked. It would be a great advantage to me to have what I might call a consultant who was in and out of those very exclusive circles.”
The eyebrows rose a little higher still.
“You used the word partner just now. You are asking me to be your partner in a blackmailing business?”
He put up a deprecatory hand.
“Now, Moira-what’s the good of talking like that? It may relieve your feelings, but I assure you it doesn’t do anything at all to mine. They have acquired a complete resistance to sarcasm, so you are wasting your time. If, on the other hand, you did by any chance succeed in making me angry, the results might be unfortunate-” He paused and added, “For you. I think that my use of the word partner was not a very happy one. It implies responsibility, and you would have none. Consultant is a much more accurate description. All I should ever ask you to do would be to keep me straight as to facts, and to assist me with your personal specialized knowledge of the people concerned. To give you a simple illustration. Certain things admitted to be facts might in one case be extremely compromising, whereas in another no one would attach the slightest importance to them. That is where your personal contacts would come in. I needn’t say that the whole thing would be completely confidential and sufficiently remunerative. As far as Josephine’s bracelet is concerned, it is yours to do what you like with. If I might make a suggestion, it would be that you should find some opportunity of restoring it to Lady Pemberley. It would be better not to run any further risk. It is the future that matters now.”