Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 42).djvu/307

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EAVESDROPPING AT INTERLAKEN.
299

Illustration of Mrs. Anstruther surprising two hotel staff, one of whom is directly behind Judith gripping her arm
"'My diamonds have been stolen!' she cried."

"Serious? Do you think I need you to tell me that it's serious? You don't know how serious. Those diamonds are worth thousands and thousands of pounds—more than the whole of your twopenny-halfpenny hotel—and they've been stolen. From my trunk, in my bedroom, in your hotel, they've been stolen!"

The way she hurled the words at him! He looked at me, and he asked:—

"What do you know about this?"

What did I know? In the midst of my confusion and distress I was asking myself what I did know. Before I could speak the door was opened again and Mrs. Newball came in. And not Mrs. Newball only, but six or seven other women, some of them accompanied by men—their husbands and their brothers. And they all told the same tale. Something had been stolen from each: from Mrs. Newball her five strings of pearls. from Mrs. This and Miss That the article of jewellery which was valued most. I am convinced that that manager, or his room, or probably

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