Part 26 (2/2)
”I--I have a confession to make,” she faltered.
”Please sit down, Mrs. Moulton,” he said simply. ”It is my business to receive confidences--and to keep them.”
She sank into, rather than sat down in, the deep leather rocker beside his desk, and now for the first time raised her veil.
Antoinette Moulton was indeed stunning, an exquisite creature with a wonderful charm of slender youth, brightness of eye and brunette radiance.
I knew that she had been on the musical comedy stage and had had a rapid rise to a star part before her marriage to Lynn Moulton, the wealthy lawyer, almost twice her age. I knew also that she had given up the stage, apparently without a regret. Yet there was something strange about the air of secrecy of her visit. Was there a hint in it of a disagreement between the Moultons, I wondered, as I waited while Kennedy rea.s.sured her.
Her distress was so unconcealed that Craig, for the moment, laid aside his ordinary inquisitorial manner. ”Tell me just as much or just as little as you choose, Mrs. Moulton,” he added tactfully. ”I will do my best.”
A look almost of grat.i.tude crossed her face.
”When we were married,” she began again, ”my husband gave me a beautiful diamond necklace. Oh, it must have been worth a hundred thousand dollars easily. It was splendid. Everyone has heard of it. You know, Lynn--er--Mr. Moulton, has always been an enthusiastic collector of jewels.”
She paused again and Kennedy nodded rea.s.suringly. I knew the thought in his mind. Moulton had collected one gem that was incomparable with all the hundred thousand dollar necklaces in existence.
”Several months ago.” she went on rapidly, still avoiding his eyes and forcing the words from her reluctant lips, ”I--oh, I needed money--terribly.”
She had risen and faced him, pressing her daintily gloved hands together in a little tremble of emotion which was none the less genuine because she had studied the art of emotion.
”I took the necklace to a jeweler, Herman Schloss, of Maiden Lane, a man with whom my husband had often had dealings and whom I thought I could trust. Under a promise of secrecy he loaned me fifty thousand dollars on it and had an exact replica in paste made by one of his best workmen. This morning, just now, Mr. Schloss telephoned me that his safe had been robbed last night. My necklace is gone!”
She threw out her hands in a wildly appealing gesture.
”And if Lynn finds that the necklace in our wall safe is of paste--as he will find, for he is an expert in diamonds--oh--what shall I do?
Can't you--can't you find my necklace?”
Kennedy was following her now eagerly. ”You were blackmailed out of the money?” he queried casually, masking his question.
There was a sudden, impulsive drooping of her mouth, an evasion and keen wariness in her eyes. ”I can't see that that has anything to do with the robbery,” she answered in a low voice.
”I beg your pardon,” corrected Kennedy quickly. ”Perhaps not. I'm sorry. Force of habit, I suppose. You don't know anything more about the robbery?”
”N--no, only that it seems impossible that it could have happened in a place that has the wonderful burglar alarm protection that Mr. Schloss described to me.”
”You know him pretty well?”
”Only through this transaction,” she replied hastily. ”I wish to heaven I had never heard of him.”
The telephone rang insistently.
”Mrs. Moulton,” said Kennedy, as he returned the receiver to the hook, ”it may interest you to know that the burglar alarm company has just called me up about the same case. If I had need of an added incentive, which I hope you will believe I have not, that might furnish it. I will do my best,” he repeated.
”Thank you--a thousand times,” she cried fervently, and, had I been Craig, I think I should have needed no more thanks than the look she gave him as he accompanied her to the door of our apartment.
<script>