“It is entirely too coincidental that it should have disappeared at the same time you did,” I argued.
“Not necessarily,” Stoker put in quietly. I turned to him in astonishment.
“You cannot say you believe him,” I began.
Stoker shrugged. “I do not know what to believe, but I have a good guess as to why he left Hathaway Hall with such speed.” He turned to Harry. “You were in mortal fear, were you not?”
Harry gaped at him. “How did you know that?”
“Simple deduction,” Stoker said. “I took the liberty of examining your room at the Hall before we left.”
I blinked at him. “You did?”
“I did,” he went on smoothly. “There was money in the washstand drawer—forty pounds to be exact. A thief would certainly have taken the money along with a change of clothes,” he added, gesturing towards Harry’s evening suit.
Harry nodded slowly. “I must say, that is a first-rate piece of deduction. I left as if all the hounds of hell were after me, with nothingbut my notecase and its four shillings in my pocket. You see, I had discovered that the diamond was missing. And I knew I would be suspected.”
“How?” I demanded.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a handkerchief—marked with the initials “JH” and a pattern of French knots, all worked in dark blue silk.
“Jonathan’s handkerchief? But why should that make a suspect of you—” I broke off, understanding at once. “Oh, of course. The thief left it with the empty jewel case.”
“Exactly,” Harry said with a shudder. “You’ve no idea the fright it gave me, knowing that someone had taken the Eye of the Dawn and meant me to swing for it.”
I looked to Stoker. “Is jewel thievery still a hanging offense? One forgets.”
Harry went on. “Does it matter? The intention was that I should be branded a criminal in the eyes of the Hathaway family, most particularly Lady Hathaway. Her good opinion of me would have been entirely destroyed.”
“I daresay it was not improved by your leaving so precipitously just as her diamond was stolen,” I told him tartly. “After all, one must presume you have not an innocent reason for opening her jewel case in the first place.”
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut quickly, like a rising carp. “Oh, very well. I did mean to take it, I admit it. I went to Lady Hathaway’s dressing room. It was quite late and she was already abed, snoring like a hound, bless her,” he added with a fond smile. “But I can move like a cat when necessary. So I crept in and opened the casket.”
“How?” Stoker inquired.
“I have certain skills of long practice,” Harry replied smoothly.
“This is not his first criminal enterprise,” I added.
“Such a nasty word, ‘criminal,’” Harry mused, rolling his eyes heavenwards so that he looked like one of the younger martyred saints.
“Such an apt one,” I countered.
He went on as if I had not spoken. “In any event, I was able to open the casket and I discovered the Eye of the Dawn was missing. The rest of the parure was intact, but the only thing inside the diamond’s box was the handkerchief.”
He brandished the item in question and Stoker took it, gazing at it thoughtfully.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing precisely, just that it is a remarkably childish attempt to throw suspicion upon one party in particular—the sort of imagination that might read sensational thrillers.” He looked at Harry. “This was taken from your room?”
“Or the laundry,” Harry said. “Or I dropped it. I am forever leaving them lying around. Anyone might have collected it.”
“And anyone might have disliked you enough to see you implicated in the theft,” I said sweetly.
“Very true,” he said in a genial tone. “I am accustomed to people deciding to take a sudden dislike to me. It is regrettable, but one cannot help it.”
“Not if one is engaged in criminal enterprises,” I replied.
