"One of your points against him is that he lately came into possession
of a lot of money, presumably the proceeds of the theft. Yet you found
the pearls on him, too. One fact contradicts the other."
"How do I know what other activities he's been engaged in?"
"You do not believe that."
"I beg your pardon," I said stiffly. "Permit me to know my own
beliefs."
"If it wasn't true it wouldn't anger you."
"I am not angry." I smiled to prove it.
"How can I talk to you if you act like such a child!" cried Sadie.
"Never mind my actions. Stick to his."
"You know very well that he could not have carried out several
successful robberies without a lot of experience. His whole open life
gives the lie to that. Have we not gone into every part of it?"
"I know I found the pearls on him," I said doggedly. "They could not
very well have been planted in a locked drawer in his own safe. He did
not even claim that they were."
She ignored this. "And that cryptogram," she went on, "I mean the
first one. It didn't say so in so many words, but the inference was
unmistakable that Miss Hamerton's pearls had been disposed of, and that
part of the proceeds was waiting for the thief. How do you account for
that?"
I did not try to account for it. I pooh-poohed it. "He convicted
himself," I insisted. "We invited him, we begged him to explain. He
could not."
"Would not, you mean."
"What's the difference?"
She favoured me with an extraordinary glance of scorn. "And you set up
to understand human nature!"
"Well, let me have your understanding of it," I said sarcastically.
"He was in love with her," said Sadie. "I suppose you don't question
that."
"No, strange as it seems, I believe he was in love with her."
"That makes goose eggs of all your fine reasoning! Reason all night
and it wouldn't make sense. He might have stolen anybody else's pearls
but never hers. It was she who wronged love in believing that he
could. To find out that she suspected him killed his love dead.
Losing that, what did he care about his reputation? If he does away
with himself it will be not because he was accused of a theft, but
because she killed his trust in her, and he doesn't care to live
without it."
I listened to all this with an affected smile of superiority, but it
reached me. Every word that the unhappy Quarles had uttered fitted in
with Sadie's theory.
"Suppose some one accused you of stealing Miss Hamerton's purse to buy
me a present," she went on, artfully changing her tone. "I would make
a tremendous virtuous fuss, of course, but in my heart I couldn't love
you any less, though you might not have the sense to know it. But if
they said you had stolen my purse to buy me something, how I would
laugh! It's too silly for words."