"Yes, I hardly know why myself. She asked me to take care of them for her. I know that this must strike you as a very peculiar statement. It was my realization of the unfavorable effect it could not fail to produce upon those who beard it, which made me dread any interrogation on the subject. But I assure you it was as I say. She put the gloves into my hand while I was talking to her, saying they incommoded her."
"And you?"
"Well, I held them for a few minutes, then I put them in my pocket, but quite automatically, and without thinking very much about it. She was a woman accustomed to have her own way. People seldom questioned it, I judge."
Here the tension about my throat relaxed, and I opened my lips to speak. But the inspector, with a glance of some authority, forestalled me.
"Were the gloves open or rolled up when she offered them to you?"
"They were rolled up."
"Did you see her take them off?"
"Assuredly."
"And roll them up?"
"Certainly."
"After which she passed them over to you?"
"Not immediately. She let them lie in her lap for a while."
"While you talked?"
Mr. Durand bowed.
"And looked at the diamond?"
Mr. Durand bowed for the second time.
"Had you ever seen so fine a diamond before?"
"No."
"Yet you deal in precious stones?"
"That is my business."
"And are regarded as a judge of them?"
"I have that reputation."
"Mr. Durand, would you know this diamond if you saw it?"
"I certainly should."
"The setting was an uncommon one, I hear."
"Quite an unusual one."
The inspector opened his hand.
"Is this the article?"
"Good God! Where--"
"Don't you know?"
"I do not."
The inspector eyed him gravely.
"Then I have a bit of news for you. It was hidden in the gloves you took from Mrs. Fairbrother. Miss Van Arsdale was present at their unrolling."
Do we live, move, breathe at certain moments? It hardly seems so.
I know that I was conscious of but one sense, that of seeing; and of but one faculty, that of judgment. Would he flinch, break down, betray guilt, or simply show astonishment? I chose to believe it was the latter feeling only which informed his slowly whitening and disturbed features. Certainly it was all his words expressed, as his glances flew from the stone to the gloves, and back again to the inspector's face.
"I can not believe it. I can not believe it." And his hand flew wildly to his forehead.
"Yet it is the truth, Mr. Durand, and one you have now to face.
How will you do this? By any further explanations, or by what you may consider a discreet silence?"
"I have nothing to explain,--the facts are as I have stated."
The inspector regarded him with an earnestness which made my heart sink.
"You can fix the time of this visit, I hope; tell us, I mean, just when you left the alcove. You must have seen some one who can speak for you."
"I fear not."
Why did he look so disturbed and uncertain?
"There were but few persons in the hall just then," he went on to explain. "No one was sitting on the yellow divan."
"You know where you went, though? Whom you saw and what you did before the alarm spread?"
"Inspector, I am quite confused. I did go somewhere; I did not remain in that part of the hall. But I can tell you nothing definite, save that I walked about, mostly among strangers, till the cry rose which sent us all in one direction and me to the side of my fainting sweetheart."
"Can you pick out any stranger you talked to, or any one who might have noted you during this interval? You see, for the sake of this little woman, I wish to give you every chance."
"Inspector, I am obliged to throw myself on your mercy. I have no such witness to my innocence as you call for. Innocent people seldom have. It is only the guilty who take the trouble to provide for such contingencies."
This was all very well, if it had been uttered with a straightforward air and in a clear tone. But it was not. I who loved him felt that it was not, and consequently was more or less prepared for the change which now took place in the inspector's manner. Yet it pierced me to the heart to observe this change, and I instinctively dropped my face into my hands when I saw him move toward Mr. Durand with some final order or word of caution.
Instantly (and who can account for such phenomena?) there floated into view before my retina a reproduction of the picture I had seen, or imagined myself to have seen, in the supper-room; and as at that time it opened before me an unknown vista quite removed from the surrounding scene, so it did now, and I beheld again in faint outlines, and yet with the effect of complete distinctness, a square of light through which appeared an open passage partly shut off from view by a half-lifted curtain and the tall figure of a man holding back this curtain and gazing, or seeming to gaze, at his own breast, on which he had already laid one quivering finger.
What did it mean? In the excitement of the horrible occurrence which had engrossed us all, I had forgotten this curious experience; but on feeling anew the vague sensation of shock and expectation which seemed its natural accompaniment, I became conscious of a sudden conviction that the picture which had opened before me in the supper-room was the result of a reflection in a glass or mirror of something then going on in a place not otherwise within the reach of my vision; a reflection, the importance of which I suddenly realized when I recalled at what a critical moment it had occurred. A man in a state of dread looking at his breast, within five minutes of the stir and rush of the dreadful event which had marked this evening!
A hope, great as the despair in which I had just been sunk, gave me courage to drop my hands and advance impetuously toward the inspector.
"Don't speak, I pray; don't judge any of us further till you have heard what I have to say."
