Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/265

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THE COOK-GENERAL
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"You'd know her again if you saw her?" suggested Wedgwood.

"I should think so!" agreed Miss Robinson. "Queerest old frump I ever saw in my life! I wondered what she was doing there."

Wedgwood rose, looking at his watch. He motioned Nottidge aside, and after impressing upon him the importance of inculcating the young woman with the doctrines of privacy and perception, nodded a farewell to her and went away. For Wedgwood had made another discovery, and he wanted to think, and as he journeyed homeward he tabulated what he had got to think about.

First of all, there seemed little doubt, from the cook-general's description of her, that the woman who had dined with Levigne and his secretary one night, three weeks or a month ago (which was about the time when Janet Clagne was visiting the Patellos at Tooting) was Janet Clagne herself. Nor was there any doubt that she was then wearing a ring in which was set a fine diamond the setting, according to Levigne, as reported by Miss Arabella Robinson, being loose. There was nothing unusual or remarkable in Janet Clagne possessing such a valuable thing—her husband, according to the Patellos, had been a jeweller: she had probably preserved the ring as a me-