Free Hue and Cry by Patricia Wentworth Page A

skirt, turning it this way and that, whilst Mrs. Craddock cried continually and Mally stood watching her.
    â€œOh!” said Jones suddenly. It was a very sharp exclamation. She dropped a fold of the skirt, then picked it up again and stared accusingly. “A pin ran right into my finger!”
    Mally stood with her bare arms crossed. She held a cold elbow in either hand and saw Jones turn back her blue serge skirt at the hem and feel it gingerly. Just by the seam the stitching had come undone.
    â€œOh!” said Jones again. She pinched the hem and slipped a finger and thumb into the hole.
    Mrs. Craddock’s handkerchief dropped from her eyes. She looked, Jones looked, and Mally looked at what the finger and thumb brought out—a bright something that flashed, a wreath of diamond leaves woven heart-wise about a central, gleaming drop, which caught the light of the dull wintry afternoon. Mrs. Craddock’s mouth fell slowly open; she looked as if she were screaming, but she did not make any sound. Mally heard herself say “No!” in a sort of piercing whisper. Jones dropped the skirt in a heap.
    â€œWell, I never!” She spoke slowly, almost abstractedly; and when she had spoken, she went over to the table and laid the Mogul Diamond down on Barbara’s blue copy-book.
    Standing there, with her back to Mally, she said roughly, “Put on your clothes. I’ll have to call Sir George.”
    Mally bent and picked up her skirt. How did a thing like this happen? It didn’t. It couldn’t. It was simply bound to be a dream. She fastened the hooks at her waist and slipped the jumper over her head. And then Sir George was back in the room, and she heard him talking to Jones, and Jones answering:
    â€œNo, sir—only this, sir.”
    â€œYou searched thoroughly? There are important papers missing.”
    Mally’s mind took hold of the word papers. It puzzled her; she looked at the word and didn’t know what to do with it.
    Sir George went out of the room again and shut the door. Jones came back to her.
    â€œWhat’s all this about papers? What’s the sense of taking other folks’ papers? You hand ’em over. Hand ’em over, and you save yourself and me a heap of trouble.”
    â€œI haven’t got them,” said Mally.
    She looked into Jones’s plain, respectable face with some faint hope that the woman might believe her, might even help her. It was a very faint hope, because Mally did not really see how any one could help her. The Mogul’s Diamond had been found hidden in the hem of her dress, and what could any one do or say that would blot out this damning fact?
    The second search was a good deal more thorough than the first. When Mally had dressed herself again, Jones went to the door and stood just outside it. Mally could hear her voice, but not what she was saying. After a moment she returned and touched Mrs. Craddock on the arm.
    â€œNow, now, ma’am.” Her voice was suddenly soft. “Don’t you take on so. You come along with me and have a bit of a lay-down, and don’t upset yourself any more. Sir George don’t want us now, so you just come along.”
    â€œOh, it’s so dreadful!” Mrs. Craddock had a fresh access of sobbing. “So dreadful! So very dreadful!”
    She held on to Jones and stood up, shaking and weeping. But before she had been piloted more than half-way to the door she stopped, turned back, and lifted her streaming eyes to Mally’s face.
    â€œMiss Lee, how could you, could you do it?”
    â€œI didn’t.” Mally’s answer came with a ring and vigor which surprised herself. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her; but her shocked apathy had passed, and whatever came, she meant to meet it fighting.
    Sir George, coming in, was aware of a change, and put it down to the fact that the paper had not been found. He stood over her with a flushed face and