Snare of Serpents Read Online Free PDF Page B

mother’s. There are several brooches and things. They are for me, but my father doesn’t think I am old enough to wear them yet. But it’s not good for pearls if they are not worn.”
    “I’ve heard that,” she said. She touched the pearls lovingly and I took them off and handed them to her.
    “The clasp is lovely,” she said. “That in itself would be worth a good deal.”
    “Oh … I shouldn’t want to sell them.”
    “Of course not. But I was just thinking … they’d be a nice little nest egg.”
    “You mean if I fell on hard times.”
    “Well, it’s a comfort to have such things.”
    I saw that sad, rather faraway look in her eyes. She was looking into a future where a nest egg would be a great comfort to her, I guessed.
    I went down to the kitchen to find out whether my father had said he would not be in for dinner that evening. He usually left a message for Mrs. Kirkwell. There was that uneasy atmosphere down there because Hamish was sitting at the table, sleeves rolled up, pulling idly at the hairs on his arms.
    I went over to Mrs. Kirkwell who was stirring something in a basin. She noticed the pearls at once.
    “My word,” she cried. “They do look fine.”
    “Yes. They are mine now. They were my mother’s. I have to wear them because they get dull if they are shut away too long.”
    “Do they now?” said Mrs. Kirkwell.
    “That’s what my father said.”
    “Well, he would know, would he not?”
    “I think I have heard it before.”
    “Well, they look very nice. They suit you, Miss Davina.”
    “The clasp is valuable, too,” I said. “It’s a diamond with little pearls round it.”
    “There now.”
    “Miss Milne said it would be a nest egg … if ever I was in need.”
    Mrs. Kirkwell laughed. “Oh, not you, Miss Davina. But she would think of that, wouldn’t she? Poor wee soul. Governesses … well, I’ve always said I wouldna be one.”
    “Has my father said whether he would be in to dinner tonight?”
    Before she could answer Hamish looked up and said: “Nay, he’ll nae be in. I know. I’m driving him.”
    Mrs. Kirkwell answered as though he had not spoken.
    “He left a message that he would not be in.”
    And soon after that, I left.
    T HE NEXT DAY there was consternation. My necklace was missing. I had kept it in its blue case in the drawer of my dressing table and I could not believe it when I discovered that the case was there but not the necklace. Frantically I searched through all the drawers, but they revealed nothing. The necklace had disappeared. It was a mystery because I would not have dreamed of not putting it away in its case.
    Everyone was shocked. When a valuable article like the necklace disappeared, said Mrs. Kirkwell, it was not very nice for those close by.
    She was right. The necklace had been in my room. Now it was no longer there. Where was it? “Necklaces don’t walk,” said Mrs. Kirkwell. Therefore the inference must be that someone had taken it. Who? No one could feel entirely free from suspicion.
    My father had not returned until late that night, driven home by Hamish, and as the household had retired he had not heard of the missing necklace until the next morning.
    I don’t suppose I was the only one in the house who had a sleepless night. We had a thief in the house and my suspicions naturally turned to Hamish. If he were capable of that other thing, might he not believe that it was “human nature” to take a necklace from someone who did not need it and give it to someone who did—himself in this case?
    But Hamish did not go beyond the kitchen. Since he was discovered in one of the bedrooms with Kitty it had been a tacit agreement that the upper floors were out of bounds to him unless he was summoned there by my father. Of course, there was always a possibility that he had not kept to the rule; but I had never seen him anywhere except in the kitchen since that affair. Yet it was not impossible that he might have crept up to my room and