The jewels being undiscoverable, and Ladd having been murdered to my knowledge by his nephew, the girl, Rachel Peters, was, as I have said, discharged. She returned to the old house for her boxes, and immediately disappeared from the knowledge of the county. Ten months later I saw her dancing on the stage of an opera house in Florida, and she was wearing _five of the seven emeralds_ which Ladd had lost! The spectacle seemed so amazing to me that I sought her out between the acts, and found her as full of _chic_ and _verve_ as a Parisian _soubrette_. Nor did she disguise anything from me, telling me everything over a cigarette with a relish and a sparkle which was astounding to see.
"Yes," said she--but I give her story in plain words, for her way of telling it is not to be written down--"I had known Vernon Ladd for years. I doubt if there was a worse man in Europe; but I was frightened of him, and I entered old Ladd's service at his wish to help him to steal the jewels. We got at the emeralds first, because they were in the small safe; but we didn't know where the keys of the other safe were, and we put two sham emeralds in the case to keep the old boy quiet while we worked. That night you came to the house Vernon Ladd was already inside, concealed behind the old man's bed; and he watched you open the great safe and spread the jewels. The mischief of it was that Ladd woke up five minutes too soon, and caught the boy by the throat--you know what he got for that, for you saw it and you know how Vernon mistook the door, and went down in a hurry. Well, when you'd gone for the police, I ran round to the back of the house, and what should I see but the bag of jewels stuck on a ledge just under the landing window. He'd dropped them as he fell, and there they were lying so plain that one could have seen them a mile off. I just ran up and reached them with my arm, but when I was in the stable again, and thinking of hiding them, I heard you driving up the road, and I slipped the bag in the first thing handy--it was your own fishing creel.
"No, you never found them, did you? just because they were hanging up there plain for every one to see. When the judge discharged me at the Court, I went again to the house to get my box, never thinking to see the stones; but you'd gone away without the creel, and it was the first thing I touched lying in the straw of the stable. You may be sure it didn't lie there long. I'd saved up enough money for a passage to the States, and when I got here I started as an actress, as I was before, and I sold the things one by one. These emeralds are all that's left--and if you're a brick, you'll buy them!"