Some time before that I got her things ready, the gown laid out, and the diamonds on the dressing-table. They were kept in a leather case of their own, and then put in a despatch-box that shut with a patent lock. When we traveled I always carried this box--that is, when my lady used it. A good deal of the time it was at the bankers’. Lord Castlecourt was very choice about the diamonds. Some of them had been in his family for generations. The way they were set now--in a necklace with pendants, the larger stones surrounded by smaller ones--had been a new setting made for his mother. My lady wanted them changed, and I remember that Lord Castlecourt was vexed with her, and she couldn’t pet and coax him back into a good humor for some days. One of the last things that I did that afternoon while arranging the dressing-table was to open the despatch-box and take the leather case out. Tho it was May, and the evenings were very long, I turned on the electric lights, and, unclasping the case, looked at the necklace. I was standing this way when Chawlmers comes to the side door of the room (the whole suite was connected with doors), and asks me if I could remember the number of the bootmakers where my lady bought her riding-boots. Some friend of Chawlmers wanted to know the address. I couldn’t at first remember it, and I was standing this way, trying to recollect, when I heard the clock strike six. I told Chawlmers I’d get it for him. I was certain it was in my lady’s desk, and I put the case down on the bureau, and Chawlmers and I together went into the sitting-room (the door open between us and my lady’s room) and looked for it. We found it in a minute, and Chawlmers was writing it down in his pocket-book when I thought I heard (so light and soft you could hardly say you’d heard anything) a rustle like a woman’s skirt in the next room. For a second I thought it was my lady, and I jumped, for I’d no business at her desk, and I knew she’d be vexed and scold me. Chawlmers didn’t hear a thing, and looked at me astonished. Then I ran to the door and peeped in. There was no one there, and I thought, of course, I’d been mistaken. We didn’t leave the room directly, but stood by the desk talking for a bit. When I told this to the detectives, one of the papers said it showed “how deceptive even the best servants were.” As if a valet and a lady’s maid couldn’t stop for a moment of talk! Poor things! we work hard enough most of the time, I’m sure. And that we weren’t long standing there idle can be seen from the fact that I heard half-past six strike. I was for urging Chawlmers to go then--as Lady Castlecourt might be in at any moment--but he hung about, following me into my lady’s room, helping me draw the curtains and turn on all the lights, for my lady can’t bear to dress by daylight.