Jacques Futrelle Short Stories Volume 4 (2 of 68)

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Problem of the Missing Necklace (CONT'D)

“Are you sure you had it on?” asked another guest solicitously.

“Oh, yes,” she replied positively, “but I may have dropped it somewhere else.”

“I noticed it just before you—we—fell,” said the Ambassador. “It must be here.”

But it wasnÂ't. In that respect—that is visible non-existence—it resembled the Cheltenham bracelet. Mr. Leighton had, on that occasion, strolled out on the lawn at night with the Honourable Miss Cheltenham and she had dropped the bracelet. That was all. It was never found.

In this Varron affair it would be useless to go into details of what immediately followed the loss of the necklace. It is sufficient to say that it was not found; that men and women stared at each other in bewildered embarrassment and mutual suspicion, and that finally Mr. Leighton, who still stood beside Lady Varron, intimated courteously, tactfully, that a personal search of her guests would not be amiss. He did not say it in so many words but the others understood.

Mr. Leighton was seconded heartily by the American Ambassador, a Democratic individual with honest ideas which were foremost when a question of personal integrity was involved. But the search was not made and the reception proceeded. Lady Varron bore her loss marvellously well.

“SheÂ's a brick,” was the audible compliment of one of the American Duchesses whose father owned $20,000,000 worth of soap somewhere in vague America. “IÂ'd have had a fit if IÂ'd lost a necklace like that.”

It was not until next day that Scotland Yard was notified of Lady VarronÂ's loss.

“Leighton there?” was ConwayÂ's question.

“Yes.”

“Then he got it,” Conway asserted positively. “IÂ'll get him this time or know why.”

Yet at the end of a month he neither had him, nor did he know why. He had intercepted messengers, he had opened letters, telegrams, cable dispatches; he had questioned servants; he had taken advantage of the absence of both Mr. Leighton and his valet to search his exquisite apartments. He had done all these things and more—all that a severely conscientious man of his profession could do, and had gnawed his scrubby moustache down to a disreputable ragged line. But of the necklace there was no clue, no trace, nothing.

Then Conway heard that Mr. Leighton was going to the United States for a few months.

“To take the necklace and dispose of it,” he declared out of the vexation of his own heart. “If he ever gets aboard ship with it IÂ've got him—either IÂ've got him or the United States customs officials will have him.”

Conway could not bring himself to believe that Mr. Leighton, with all his cleverness, would dare try to dispose of the pearls in England and he flattered himself that Leighton could not have sent them elsewhere—too close a watch had been kept.

It transpired naturally that when the Boston bound liner Romanic sailed from Liverpool four days later not only was Mr. Leighton aboard but Conway was there. He knew Leighton, but was secure in the thought that Leighton did not know him.

On the second day out he was disabused on this point. He was beginning to think that it might not be a bad idea to know Leighton casually so when he noticed that immaculate gentleman alone, leaning on the rail, smoking, he sauntered up and joined him in contemplation of the infinite ocean.

“Beautiful weather,” Conway remarked after a long time.

“Yes,” replied Leighton as he glanced around and smiled. “I should think you Scotland Yard men would enjoy a junket like this?”

Conway didnÂ't do any such foolish thing as start or show astonishment, whatever he might have felt. Instead he smiled pleasantly.

“IÂ've been working pretty hard on that Varron affair,” he said frankly. “And now IÂ'm taking a little vacation.”

“Oh, that thing at Lady VarronÂ's?” inquired Leighton lazily. “Indeed? I happened to be the one to notice that the necklace was gone.”

“Yes, I know it,” responded Conway, grimly.

The conversation drifted to other things. Conway found Leighton an agreeable companion, and a democratic one. They smoked together, walked together and played shuffle-board together. That evening Leighton took a hand at “bridge” in the smoking room. For hours Conway stared at the phosphorescent points in the sinister green waters, and smoked.

“If he did it,” he remarked at last, “heÂ's the cleverest scoundrel on earth, and if he did not IÂ'm the biggest fool.”

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