Free Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix Page A

replacement gem instead of searching for the stolen one? Their leaving looks suspicious in the extreme.”
    “Adventure!” interrupted the General. “Remember when you were under twenty, Charles? Any excuse to escape to adventure was welcome. Why you took it yourself, joining the colours.”
    “Oh,” said Truthful, suddenly seeing her cousins’ eagerness to help as less unselfish concern and more simple high spirits. Or indeed, the effect of spirits . . . she hadn’t mentioned the rum punch to the General and Major Harnett.
    “Not that it doesn’t do them credit,” said General Leye. “Brave lads. But they didn’t think it through. Neither did Lady Truthful. Now, we rule out the cloud-catcher or smoke-devil. Nothing of that sort could even touch an
objet de puissance
like the Emerald! That would have been a bit of misdirection from someone. Easy enough to swirl a bit of cloud about, don’t need much talent or power for that. No, there has to be a human agency at work and as always, I suspect a fairly obvious one.”
    “An obvious one . . .” said Truthful, her voice faltering.
    “Lady Truthful has been too trusting. I fear she suffers from a blindness common in the well-bred. Plain as the nose on your face.”
    “Blindness,” mused Harnett, a lock of his dark hair escaping to fall across his brooding forehead. “Yes, yes . . . I see.”
    “You mean you know what happened to the Emerald?” asked Truthful. “After simply hearing my, that is my version of Lady Truthful’s story?”
    “I have a very good suspicion that must be tested,” said the General, leaning toward the fireplace to firmly stub out his cigar on the head of a bronze firedog. He settled back in his chair and said, “Those of higher rank do tend to forget the servants, both for good and ill. Too used to paying them no mind. Not sensible, for many reasons.”
    “You mean . . .” faltered Truthful.
    “The maid. Agatha. Only possible person. Don’t believe anyone else could have entered in the short space of darkness. The Emerald was knocked to the floor when the table went over. It must have been picked up when Agatha brought the lamp in. I expect she curtsied, did some bent-over truckling or something similar?”
    “Agatha!” said Truthful, stunned. In hindsight, it was obvious, of course, once the magical intervention was discounted. The dropping of the smelling salts, her voluminous dress billowing out as she knelt, covering the Emerald, so she could pick it up with her left hand while fetching the smelling salts with her right.
    “But Agatha has been . . . Lady Truthful’s maid since she before she was twelve! Seven years!” she exclaimed. “What could she do with the Emerald anyway?”
    “Certainly couldn’t sell it,” replied the General, reaching across to pour himself another brandy from the decanter on the side-table. “She would be very unlikely to have the contacts of a proper jewel-thief. She probably stole it for someone else. Given the Emerald’s properties, it’s more than possible she had been waiting to steal it for seven years. Who did she work for before she came to Lady Truthful, d’ye know?”
    “No,” said Truthful, who really didn’t know. A second later, she realised that would be the only possible answer the chevalier could give. Looking back at the General, she saw thetwinkle in his eye again, and with a sinking heart she knew that he had penetrated her disguise, but wouldn’t give her away if she were clever enough to keep up the deception. Harnett didn’t appear to have noticed, and the General was enjoying pulling the wool over his young colleague’s eyes.
    “Pity,” said the General. “I would investigate this Agatha closely, and her past employers. Is she still with Lady Truthful? She hasn’t run away, or disappeared?”
    “No, she is still there,” replied Truthful, thinking back to the last time she’d seen Agatha, and her surprise entrance into Lady Badgery’s room.