‘Oh, well—revenge is sweet, no doubt,’ said Patsy equably. ‘Personally, I’ll be quite contented with Auntie’s pearls.’
‘You’ll have to; anything else she’s got is kept in the bank,’ said Edgar.
Their plan went into operation the following evening. Gladys, patently rattled, answered the front door and beheld the friendly stranger from the Green Man. ‘Do forgive my disturbing you at such an hour—’
‘You shouldn’t be calling here at any hour,’ said Gladys, glancing fearfully back towards the closed drawing-room door.
‘It was only that I mislaid my lighter last night. Sentimental value, you know; I couldn’t bear to lose it. I wondered if by any chance you’d happened to notice—’
‘I noticed nothing,’ said Gladys, beginning to close the door.
‘It’s nowhere in the pub. I suppose…’ He had unconsciously moved a step forward so that she could do nothing without physically pushing him backwards. ‘You couldn’t possibly have picked it up, without thinking, and dropped it with your other things into your handbag?’ In his anxiety, the gentleman had begun, quite unconsciously again, of course, to raise his voice. Gladys glanced back over her shoulder again. ‘No, no, of course: no such thing!’
‘If you wouldn’t mind just looking? So sorry to trouble you.’
‘Please keep your voice down; she’ll be coming out into the hall.’ She dithered doubtfully. ‘Well, I’ll just go and make sure.’ She hurried off towards the kitchen, in her agitation never thinking to ask him to wait on the step outside. And extraordinary to relate, what he had suggested must have happened after all; for here at the bottom of her neat leather handbag was a rather cheap silver lighter. He thanked her effusively and went away. She listened for a moment at the drawing-room door, but except for the clinking of glass against bottle, all was peace. Her room was on the second floor; her ladyship never came up so far, couldn’t manage the stairs, these days, and one way and another she’d got it very comfortable and cosy. With an occasional glance down from the top landing to see that all was well, she spent the rest of the evening with her knitting and the television.
Patsy slipped out of the dining-room, once Gladys had gone and went quietly up to the first floor. She located her ladyship’s bedroom—really, the amount Edgar had got out of that housekeeper!—and inspected the others. There were two unused rooms, their keys in the doors. She chose the more remote, went in, locked the door behind her and put herself very comfortably to bed. There’d be the whole night to wait; and who looks into a locked spare room?
At midnight Lady Blatchett, propelled by the patient Gladys, reeled uncertainly up to bed. She would remain there—so Gladys had confided to her sympathetic friend in the pub, (‘She never thinks that I’ve got to get up, after waiting up for her till all hours!’)—till lunch-time. Patsy did not hear them. She was snuggled up under the spare-room eiderdown, deep in untroubled slumbers.
At eleven the next morning Gladys, according to custom, inched open the bedroom door and peeked in, before retiring to the kitchen for coffee and a biscuit. Lady Blatchett was still fast asleep and snoring. The pearls were kept under her pillow but in her late evening condition, her ladyship hadn’t been too clever about concealing them: Gladys could see their gentle gleam, tumbled half out from under the crumpled linen. A choker of pearls, not many of them and not very large—but perfectly matched, they said, of a wonderful quality and worth a small fortune. At that moment she heard the milkman’s knock and went down to the back door. Patsy had checked on this being settling-up day. Gladys would be kept occupied for several minutes.
She came back into the house to hear muffled squeals and the sound of her ladyship’s bell, violently ringing. Lady Blatchett had been shocked awake to find her head and shoulders enveloped in a tangle of black draperies; and by the time she got free to summon help, the front door had closed and the pearls were gone.
Gladys spent what time she must in calming her ladyship’s agitations, which centred largely upon the threat of the Niece from Scotland; and then telephoned the police.
The station was at the corner of the cul-de-sac, just opposite the Green Man; and a constable on duty outside was able to report that though many people had gone in and out of the cul-de-sac in the course of the morning, in the few minutes since the theft of the pearls, not a soul had left it. Unless egress had been effected through one of the other houses, therefore—which on a rapid mental reconnaissance seemed unlikely—it was safe to assume that both plunder and plunderer were still safely bottled up inside. A police officer made good time to the scene of the crime.