Nettie took the lead again.

‘She doesn’t fit in very well, but Mrs Graham took her up. Of course the Harrisons have plenty of money. She has a lot of jewellery. Of course we don’t know where it came from.’

‘Perhaps Mr Harrison gave it to her,’ said Lily.

Mabel Pimm sniffed through pinched nostrils.

‘I believe she was once on the stage!’

Nettie continued to prattle.

‘Actresses do get given valuable presents of course. She has a diamond sunburst – quite a big one. She was wearing it at Mrs Justice’s cocktail-party – it made her look rather overdressed, we thought. Perhaps you noticed it.’

‘Oh, yes, I did. A very handsome ornament.’

Nettie went on.

‘And did you notice her rings? There is a ruby and diamond, and a diamond and sapphire, and one which she always wears – five diamonds in a row – great big stones.’

‘She has lost one of the diamonds,’ said Lily Pimm.

Both sisters turned to look at her, and both exclaimed.

Nettie said, ‘A diamond out of that ring!’ and Mabel, ‘How do you know?’

Lily beamed.

‘Because I saw it. She was on the bus on Wednesday morning, and when she pulled off her glove to find some change to pay the fare, there was the ring. And one of the stones was gone! I said, “Oh, Mrs Harrison, you’ve lost a stone out of your ring!” And she said, “Oh, no!” And I said, “Didn’t you know you had lost it?” And she said, “Oh, no, I didn’t,” and she turned the glove inside out to see if it had run down into one of the fingers, but it wasn’t there. And I said, “Didn’t you notice when you put it on?” And she said, “I don’t have to put it on, because I practically never take it off. It’s a little loose, and it is apt to slip round a bit, so I mightn’t notice the stone being gone.” And I said, “Well, it was all right last night when you were playing bridge at the Reckitts, because I always look to see what rings you are wearing, and you had this one and a pearl and diamond one on the right hand, and the ruby ring and the sapphire ring on the left, and the diamonds were all there then.” I don’t know why that should have made her angry, but it did, because she said, “How could you possibly tell?” So I told her.’

Miss Silver showed the most gratifying interest.

‘And how could you tell?’

‘I counted them,’ said Lily simply. ‘There are three in the diamond and sapphire ring, and three in the ruby and diamond ring, and three more in the ring with two pearls in it, and five in the one that is just diamonds and nothing else. And all the five diamonds were there! So I said, “Perhaps you lost it later on?” And she was quite cross and said, oh, no she hadn’t, because all the stones were there when she dressed to come out that morning. I can’t think why she should say that, when she started off by telling me about the ring slipping round on her finger so maybe she hadn’t noticed that the stone was gone.’

‘How strange,’ said Miss Silver. ‘And all this happened on the bus on Wednesday morning? You saw the stone was gone, and first she told you that the ring was in the habit of slipping round on her finger so that she might not have noticed the loss of one of the stones, and then she said that she had noticed that the stone was there when she was dressing to come out?’

Lily gave a pleased smile.

‘Yes, that was what she said. She thinks a lot of that ring, you know. Some uncle or great-uncle in the family brought the stones from India. They cost a lot of money. Mr Harrison had them re-set for her as a wedding-present. She was ever so upset at losing one.’

Miss Silver then narrated an instance of a ring being lost on a beach in Devonshire and turning up some years later in a handbag belonging, not to the person who had lost the ring, but to a relative who had not been anywhere near the beach when it was missed. It was quite a long story, with a good many excursions into such irrelevancies as the exact relationship between the loser and the finder of the ring and both their previous and their subsequent histories. By the time the story was finished Mrs Harrison had receded into the background, emerging later on, no longer in connexion with the ring but introduced by Mabel for the purpose of importing Mr Worple into the conversation.

‘A really dreadful young man – quite like one of those spivs you hear about in the papers. I saw them with my own eyes going into Sefton’s. I had to go in myself for some buns, and there they were in one of those little alcoves at the end of the shop. I came home and told my sisters that I could not believe they had only just met.’

‘Oh, yes, she did!’ said Nettie.

‘And it turns out I was perfectly right. And who do you think he really is? You may have noticed the house-agents in the High Street, Martin and Steadman – well, old Mr Martin, the present Mr Martin’s father, married a Mrs Worple as his second wife, and this is her son, Fred Worple. He went into the business when he first grew up, but he wasn’t at all satisfactory, and after a little he disappeared and the Martins stopped talking about him. Getting on for ten years ago that must be, and now here he is back again and quite well off. Our daily maid Doris had it from Mrs Lane who works for the Martins – all these dailies will talk, you know. And I don’t know where Fred Worple knew Mrs Harrison, but it seems they are quite old friends, and they have been seeing each other every day.’ Nettie came darting in. ‘I wonder Mr Harrison likes it!’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t,’ said Lily Pimm.

MISS SILVER WALKED back to The Lodge in a thoughtful frame of mind. The Miss Pimms certainly had an unusual talent for gathering information. The amount with which they had furnished her provided much food for thought. Mrs Harrison had been the subject of Mabel’s most serious strictures – her dress, her bridge manners, her addiction to members of the opposite sex, her treatment of her husband. She had lost her temper with him during a bridge party at Mrs Justice’s only about a fortnight ago. Of course he was not a good player, and she made him worse by continually criticizing his play, but when she called him a fool with an adjective in front of it which Mabel felt she could not repeat, and finished up by throwing her cards in his face, it really did pass all bounds. A supplement by Nettie deprecated the fact that similar exhibitions were said to be not uncommon at Grove Hill House. Mrs Harrison couldn’t bear to be crossed. If Mr Harrison said a word, she would flare right up. On one occasion she had thrown a decanter at his head. If it had hit him he might have been killed, but he ducked and it went smashing into a big mirror on the dining-room wall. Nettie had also quite a lot to say about the dead set that had been made at young Dr Hamilton, and at the curate at St Jude’s – ‘Such a nice young man, and we found that we had met an aunt of his at Brighton before the war.’ There was indeed plenty for Miss Silver to turn over in her mind.

Althea had given her a key to the front door. As she came into the hall the murmur of voices in the drawing-room informed her that Nicholas Carey was still there. She hoped to see him before he took his leave, but she did not think he would be in any great hurry to go. She had reached the foot of the stairs, had indeed already laid her hand on the baluster, when she checked and remained for some moments without moving. When she did move it was to go up to her bedroom, but with a changed purpose. Leaving the door ajar, she removed her gloves and put them neatly away in the left-hand top drawer of the chest of drawers. Then, opening the right-hand top drawer, she took out a powerful electric torch, a useful gift from Frank Abbott, and putting it in the pocket of her coat made her way downstairs again. The immediate purpose of the torch did not appear. It would not be dark until eight o’clock, and it was now no more than a quarter past six.