And I don't suppose they would care much about her, unless they were pretty advanced. I'm not, you know, Frank. I'm a bread and b.u.t.ter Miss from the country. I keep my mouth shut and my eyes open."

"At the same time," said Nancy, "our splendid youth is really a great attraction. If Joan and I had lived in the eighteenth century, we should have been known as the beautiful Miss Clintons. And we should have had a very good time."

"You have a very good time as it is," said Frank, "only you're not sensible enough to know it. You ought not to want anything much jollier than this."

The windows of the big airy upstairs room were wide open to the summer breezes. Outside, the spreading lawns of the garden, bordered by ancient trees, and the gra.s.sy level of the park lay quiet and s.p.a.cious, flooded with soft sunshine. There was an air of leisure and undisturbed seclusion about the scene, which was summed up in this room, retired from the rest of the house, where the happiness of childhood still lingered. It was not surprising that Frank, coming back to it after his long sea wanderings, should have been seized by the opulent tranquillity of his home. He was as happy as he could be, all day and every day, woke up to a clear sensation of pleasure at finding himself where he was, and watched the dwindling tail of his leave with hardly less regret than the end of the holidays had brought him during his schooldays. At twenty-six, with ten years of the sea and the responsibilities of his profession behind him, he had stepped straight back into his boyhood. He was not reflective enough to realise that time would not stand still for him in this way for ever.

It seemed to him that, whatever else might change, Kencote would always be the same, and he could always recapture his boyhood there. That was partly why he disliked to hear his young sisters belittling its comparative stagnation, which was to him so delightful. He had thought them absurdly grown-up when he had first come home; but that effect had worn off. He was a boy, and they were children in the schoolroom again, their father and mother downstairs, out of the way of their noise. So it would be when he came home again in two or three years'

time. So it would always be, as far as it was in him to look ahead.

But his sisters had other ideas. Their wing-feathers were growing, and they were already beginning to flutter them. Perhaps in after years, whatever happiness might come to them--and all life in the future was, of course, to be happy, as well as much more exciting--they too would look back upon these midsummer months with regret, and wish for their childhood back again.

A few days later Joan and Nancy were taking a country walk with their dogs. They were about a mile away from Kencote, when a motor-car came suddenly along the road towards them, driven by a smart-looking young man in a green hat and a blue flannel suit. The girls were on the gra.s.s by the side of the road holding two of the dogs until it should have pa.s.sed, when to their surprise it stopped, and a cheerful voice called out, "Hullo, Miss Joan! Here's a piece of luck! I was just on my way to see you."

Joan stood upright with a blush on her face, which she would have preferred not to have shown, while Mr. Robert Trench jumped down from the car and advanced to shake hands with her. He also shook hands with Nancy, remarking that he remembered her very well, and should have known her anywhere by her likeness to her sister.

"What remarkable powers of observation you have!" observed Joan, rallying her forces.

Bobby Trench only grinned at her. "Chaffing, as usual!" he said.

"But, bless you, I don't mind. I say, I suppose you have heard about this beastly thing that has happened at Brummels--about my mother's necklace?"

"No, I haven't," said Joan.

"What, not heard that it was stolen! Why, it was when you were staying in the house too. Everybody is talking about it. Wherever have you been burying yourself that you've heard nothing?"

"At home at Kencote," replied Joan. "You don't think I brought the necklace away with me, do you?"

Bobby Trench grinned again. "We were talking it over last night," he said. "I think we have seen everybody that was in the house at the time except you, and I said, 'By Jove! I wonder whether Miss Joan noticed anything?' We don't want to leave any stone upturned, so I said I would run down and look you all up. It must be years since I came to Kencote. You were both jolly little kids then."

"I beg your pardon," said Nancy, "we were fifteen. We weren't kids at all."

"I apologise," said Bobby. "Anyhow, I thought it was a chance not to be missed. Now, did you notice anything, Miss Joan? Oh, I forgot; I haven't told you the story yet."

"I think you had better do that first," said Joan.

Bobby Trench then told them the story, and when he came to describe the hiding-place Joan gave an exclamation.

"Is it just where that little Dutch picture hangs?" she asked. "The one with the old woman cleaning a copper pot?"

"Yes. That's the place," said Bobby. "Why? Do you know anything about it?"

Joan's face was serious. "Are you quite sure that Mrs. Amberley took the necklace?" she asked.

"We're about as sure as we could be, unless we had actually seen her doing it. I'll tell you what we have found out afterwards. You didn't see her opening the cupboard by any chance, did you?"

Joan did not reply for a moment. Nancy looked at her with some excitement on her face. "What _did_ you see?" she asked.

Still Joan seemed unwilling to speak, and Bobby Trench said, "If you did see something, you ought to let us know. It's a very serious business. The things stolen are worth pots of money, and we know perfectly well that it can only be Mrs. Amberley who has taken them.

Besides, we've pretty well proved it now. We have found people to whom she sold separate pearls; but for goodness' sake don't let that out yet. I only tell you so that you may know that it wouldn't only rest on you."

Joan raised her eyes to his. "I went into the morning-room," she said, "and Mrs. Amberley was standing with her back to me by the fireplace."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Bobby Trench, staring at her as if fascinated.

"She turned sharp round when I came in," said Joan, "and then she asked me if I didn't love old Dutch pictures, and showed me that one. That is why I remembered about it."

"Was she actually looking at it when you came in?"

"Well, no. I don't think she was. It was just a little to the right of where she was standing. I had forgotten all about it, but I remember now that when she mentioned the picture I thought to myself that she seemed to have been looking at the bare panels, and not at the picture at all. Besides, she was blushing scarlet, and it was just as if I had caught her in something."

"By Jove! you must jolly nearly have caught her with the panel open.

Did you notice anything odd about the wall she was standing in front of as you came in?"

Joan thought for a moment. "No, I didn't," she said decidedly.

"Had she got anything in her hand?"

Joan thought again. "I didn't notice," she said. "But I believe she kept her hands behind her while she was talking to me. She didn't talk long. Just as I was looking at the picture she suddenly said she had some letters to write, and went out of the room."

Bobby Trench, with growing excitement, asked her further questions--as to the time at which this had happened, as to the exact words that Mrs.

Amberley had said.

"We've hit the bull's eye this time," he said. "What a brilliant idea it was of mine to come and ask you! Look here, hadn't we better go and talk to Mr. Clinton about it? He's an old friend of my father's. I expect he'll be pleased to be able to give us a hand up over this business."

"I should think he would be delighted," said Nancy drily. "Will Joan have to give evidence at a trial?"

"Oh yes. There'll be a trial all right. We've got the good lady sitting, now. But you won't mind that, will you, Miss Joan? If you'll both hop in, I'll drive you back. We can take the dogs, too, if you like. I hope Mr. Clinton will be in. I shall be glad to see him again."

CHAPTER III

THE SQUIRE IS DRAWN IN

If Bobby Trench really felt the pleasure he had expressed at the prospect of seeing Mr. Clinton again, it was a sensation not shared by the Squire, when his motor-car came swishing up the drive, and he alighted from it in company with Joan and Nancy.

Some few years before, Humphrey Clinton had brought him to Kencote for some winter b.a.l.l.s. Lady Susan Clinton, a distant connection, now Humphrey's wife, and her mother, had been members of the house-party, and trouble had ensued. They belonged to the fast modern world, which the Squire abominated. They had essayed to play Bridge on Sunday; Bobby Trench had tried to get out of going to church, had made havoc of punctuality, had, in fact, seriously disturbed the serene, self-satisfied atmosphere of Kencote. And the Squire had never forgiven him. He was a "young cub," the sort of youth he never wished to see at Kencote again, outside the pale of that G.o.d-fearing, self-respecting country aristocracy which was to the Squire the head and front of all that was most admirable and best worth preserving in the body politic.

Bobby Trench had been hardly less free of criticism on his own account.

Kencote was a cemetery of the dead, a little bit of Hampstead stuck down ten miles from nowhere, which came to the same thing; its owner was an old clodhopper. Never again would he permit himself to be inveigled into paying such a visit.

Yet here he was, advancing across the turf to where the tea-table was spread in the shade of a great cedar, with an ingratiating smile on his face, and apparently no doubt of the prospective warmth of his welcome.

"How do you do, Mrs. Clinton? Years since I saw you. How do you do, Mr. Clinton? You don't look a day older. The governor sent you messages, in case I should be lucky enough to see you. We are all at Brummels for the week-end. I started at ten this morning; made about a hundred miles of it; lunched at Bathgate. By Jove, you live in a past century here! Wonderful peaceful country, but a bit dull, eh?"

The Squire had somewhat recovered from his surprise during this speech, and was prepared to abide by his principles of hospitality, in spite of his distaste for Bobby Trench, and all he represented. But the last comment aroused his resentment, and emphasised the distance that lay between him and this glib young man.

"We don't find it dull," he said; "but I dare say people who spend their lives rushing about from one place to another and never settling to anything might. They are welcome to their tastes, but the less I have to do with them the better I'm pleased."