Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/184

a gold bracelet, the property of Lady Bartholomew?"

The maid gulped, nodded and started breathlessly upon a recital of her wrongs.

"Yes, sir—but she practically gave it to me, sir, and I haven't had my wages for two months, sir, and she can give that foreigner thousands and thousands of pounds at a time, sir, but her poor servants she can't pay—no, she can't. And if Sir William knew especially about my lady's cards and about the snuffbox, what would he think, I wonder, and I'm going to have my rights, for if she can pay thousands to a swell like Mr. Kara she can pay me and—"

Mansus jerked his head.

"Take her down to the cells," he said briefly, and they led her away, a wailing, woeful figure of amateur larcenist.

In three minutes Mansus was with T. X. and had reduced the girl's incoherence to something like order.

"This is important," said T. X.; "produce the Abigail."