Part 4 (2/2)

Now mind what I say.”

He rose from his seat again, as if the subject was finally disposed of.

And again Bobby Trench arrested his departure. ”I'm afraid we can't leave it like that, you know, Mr. Clinton,” he said. ”Miss Joan's evidence is of the greatest possible importance to us. I'm bound to tell my people. Besides, surely you wouldn't want to keep a fact like that back, would you? The necklace is worth six or seven thousand pounds, and if we bring the theft home to Mrs. Amberley, my mother may get some of the pearls back. We've already traced some of them, and know that she has been disposing of them separately.”

”Tell your people by all means,” said the Squire. ”But don't let Joan's name be brought into the trial. I insist upon that. I won't have it.”

Bobby Trench stared at this exhibition of blindness to the necessities of the case. He made no reply, probably reflecting that the subpoena which would be served upon Joan would bring those necessities home to the Squire as readily as anything, and that it would be unnecessary to bring additional wrath upon himself by explaining matters beforehand.

It was Mrs. Clinton who, observing his face, said, ”I think Mr. Trench means that it will be necessary for Joan to give evidence of what she saw at the trial, if it comes to that,” she said.

”What!” exclaimed the Squire, bending his brows upon her. ”What can you be thinking of to suggest such a thing, Nina? A girl of Joan's age to give evidence at a criminal trial! A pretty idea, indeed!”

He transferred his glare upon Bobby, who felt uncomfortable. ”Absurd old creature!” was his inward comment, but as he made it he looked at Joan, standing in her white frock under the shade of her big hat, and the picture she made appealed so forcibly to his aesthetic sense that he was impelled to an endeavour to put the situation on a better footing.

It would never do to go away saying nothing, and then to launch the bombsh.e.l.l of a subpoena into peaceful, prejudiced Kencote. It would bring Joan into the witness-box, but it would certainly keep Bobby Trench away from her, in the worst possible odour with her resentful parent.

”I know it's a most awful bore, Mr. Clinton,” he said. ”I'll promise you this, that if Miss Joan can be kept out of it in any way, she shall be. I should hate to see her in the court myself.”

”You won't see her there,” said the Squire decisively. ”But you'll excuse my saying that it won't matter to you one way or the other where you see her. I will write to your father about this business. It's all most infernally annoying, and I wish to goodness you had kept away from us--although I should have been glad enough to see you here if this hadn't happened.”

The last statement was not in the least true, but was drawn from him by the contest going on in his mind between his strong dislike of Bobby Trench and his sense of what was required of him towards a guest. He compelled himself to shake hands of farewell, and marched into the house, the set of his back and the way he held his head indicating plainly that he would give free rein to the acute irritation he was feeling when he got there.

There was a pause when he had disappeared through the windows of the library, and then Mrs. Clinton asked quietly, ”Do you think there is any chance of Joan not being required to give evidence at the trial?”

”Well, I'll tell you exactly how it is, Mrs. Clinton,” said Bobby, relieved at being able to address himself to somebody who was apparently capable of accepting facts. ”If Mrs. Amberley would admit that she had stolen the necklace, and give back the pearls she hadn't made away with, we should drop it, and there wouldn't be any more bother. But I'm bound to say that I don't think she will now. It's gone too far. She brazened it out when my father and mother charged her with it, and she'll go on brazening it out. I think it is bound to come into the courts.”

”Will she be charged with the theft?”

”That's not quite settled on. She threatened to bring an action against us if we talked about it. And, of course, we _have_ talked.

We are quite ready to meet her action, and would rather it came on in that way. But if she doesn't make a move soon, we shall be obliged to.

It will be the only chance of getting anything back. We have had detectives working, and it is quite certain that she has sold pearls in Paris within the last month. They are ready to swear to her. She has p.a.w.ned one in London, too--in the city. So you see we're quite certain about her. Yet it would only be circ.u.mstantial evidence, for, of course, n.o.body could swear to separate pearls; and she might get off.

What Miss Joan saw would clinch it. I'm awfully sorry about it, since Mr. Clinton feels as he does, but I'm bound to say that I think she ought to be prepared to give her evidence. It wouldn't be fair on us to hold it back, even if it was possible--now would it?”

Mrs. Clinton seemed unwilling to express an opinion, but she told her husband later on, when Bobby Trench had taken himself off, that she feared there would be no help for it, Joan would have to give her evidence, whether they liked it or no.

And so it proved. In answer to his letter to Lord Sedbergh, the Squire received an intimation from his old friend that they had decided to prosecute at once. They had learnt that Mrs. Amberley, who was getting cold-shouldered everywhere, was making arrangements to leave England altogether. They were on the point of having her arrested. He was very sorry that a girl of Joan's age should be mixed up in such an unpleasant affair, but it must be plain that her evidence could not be dispensed with, and he hoped that, after all, the ordeal might not be such a very trying one for her. She would only have to tell her story and stick to it. Everything should be done on their side that was possible to make things easy for her, and the affair would soon blow over.

The Squire, raging inwardly and outwardly, had to bow to circ.u.mstances.

The day after he had received Lord Sedbergh's letter a summons came for Joan to present herself at a certain police court, and he and Mrs.

Clinton took her up to London the same afternoon.

CHAPTER IV

JOAN GIVES HER EVIDENCE

The June suns.h.i.+ne, beating through the dusty windows of the Police Court, fell upon a very different a.s.sembly from that which was usually to be found in that place of mean omen.

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