“I didn’t see you crying.”

“Of course, a person like Beddoes will distinguish himself in the real thing. Did you know he boarded that helicopter and brought it down, without really knowing how?”

“Did he?” Stephanie sounded unimpressed. “Oh, have you seen the things they had in the packing cases? They’re unloading them in another room—that policeman, the one that went out, he’s awfully sweet, he let me go and look. Oh, you must. Mr. Majendie’s nearly going mad.” She stopped suddenly, and laughed. “We can hear him even in there. ‘My dear good fellow! Pray be careful. That figurine—Christie’s last year—almost identical—so-and-so, so-and-so—Bustelli, you know’.”

“You mimic him very well, Stephanie.”

“Well, I hear him every single day. Oh—that reminds me. You remember about that cameo? Well, I thought how odd it was that Mr. Emmanuel should have let you have it cheap if you weren’t a friend of his or Mr. Majendie’s, so I made a few inquiries—”

“God above!”

“Discreet inquiries,” she said, with dignity. “And I’m terribly sorry to have misled you, but it was fifteen all the time. It really was. After all, it’s very easy to mistake fifteen for fifty, especially when it’s not said to you but to someone else, and you’re only overhearing. What’s the matter now?”

“Nothing,” said Brett, “nothing, nothing.”

“I was going to tell you in a letter,” she said. Her face clouded. “Now I’ve nothing to write about.”

“Would that deter you? Take me in and introduce me to your father.”

“Oh, I suppose I must,” she sighed. “You know your famous Sergeant Beddoes is in there too? He introduced himself.”

“Don’t you like him?”

Her hand was on the door. She turned round, surpassing herself in smiles. “Not so much as you,” she said.

“In short, my dear fellow,” said Majendie in a low voice, puffing slightly as a result of his exertions in plodding through the snow, “you believed me to be one of them. No, no—don’t apologise. It was a natural surmise. Ah—now I appreciate the force of your observation, that the Princess was unaware of the irony of choosing me, in connection with the sale. Dear me! Then you also thought that I’d—what’s the word?—double-crossed my associates, that I’d concealed my summons to Bright’s Row and privately profited to their loss. But I must positively insist, my dear fellow, that I neither bought nor stole it from the Princess. I had intended to correct you in that, was on the point of doing so, you may remember, when events began to crowd upon us—confound! This snow is damned difficult going. Treacherous. I wonder if I might avail myself of your arm—ah, thank you! No, sir, the Princess gave it to me. To be precise, she offered me the choice of what I best liked from the whole collection. I confess I was staggered. I mean to say, what if I’d picked the emerald necklace? I should have had a fortune drop in to my hand without so much as lifting a finger. However, my dear boy, when you reach my age no doubt you’ll feel as I do—what, after all, is money? No, it was the collector’s piece, as they say, which took my eye. Oh, there were many such, but this was outstanding—‘the star of the collection’, as you expressed it with quite remarkable aptness. I didn’t hesitate.”