How she came to select Sara Dwight as an accomplice I am not qualified to state. In my opinion, fear of detection made her seek the aid of a confederate. Sara’s flight, with its obviously suspicious surroundings, has an air of prearrangement suggestive of having been carefully planned to divert suspicion from the real criminal. Sophy Jeffers assured me that Lady Castlecourt had never, to her knowledge, conversed at any length with the housemaid. But Jeffers is a very simple-minded person, whom it would be an easy matter to deceive. That Sara Dwight was her ladyship’s accomplice I am positive; that she took the jewels and now has them is also my opinion. Being convinced of her need of ready money, and of the rashness and lack of balance in her character, I have been expecting that Lady Castlecourt would make some decisive move in the way of selling the diamonds. With this idea agents of mine have been on the watch, but without so far finding any evidence that she has attempted to place the stones on the market. We have found no traces of them either in London or Paris, or the usual depots in Holland or Belgium. It is true that the Castlecourt diamonds, not being remarkable for size, would be easy to dispose of in small, separate lots, but our system of surveillance is so thorough that I do not see how they could escape us. I am of the opinion that the stones are still in the hands of Sara Dwight, who, whether she is an accomplished thief or not, is probably more wary and more versed in such dealings than Lady Castlecourt. That her ladyship should have been the object of my suspicions from the start may seem peculiar to those to whom she appears only as a person of rank, wealth, and beauty. Before the case came under my notice at all, I had heard her uncontrolled extravagance remarked upon, and that alone, coupled with the fact that Lord Castlecourt is not a peer of vast wealth, and that the lady’s moral character is said to be unblemished, would naturally arouse the suspicion of one used to the vagaries and intricacies of the evolution of crime. During my first interview with her ladyship I watched her closely, and was struck by her pallor, her impatience under questioning, her hardly concealed nervousness, and her indignant repudiation of the suspicions cast upon her servants. All the domestics in her employment agree that she is a kind and generous mistress, and it would be particularly galling to one of her disposition to think that her employees were suffering for her faults. Her answers to many of my questions were vague and evasive, and to both Brison and myself, at two different times, she suggested the possibility of the jewels not being stolen at all, but having been “mislaid.” Even Brison, whose judgment had been warped by her beauty and rank, was forced to admit the strangeness of this remark.