Who Pays the Piper? by Patricia Wentworth

came. She said at last,
    â€œI put—it away——”
    â€œThink, Cathy— think ! Did you put it down anywhere, or go out of the room? Did you put the keys down?”
    Cathy shook her head. Words came a little more easily.
    â€œNo—I put it away.”
    â€œAt once?”
    â€œYes.”
    Susan turned to Dale. He said,
    â€œShe didn’t give me back the keys till everyone had gone. There was time enough and to spare.”
    There was a gasp from Cathy. Her face went back into her hands again. Lucas Dale said,
    â€œThere it is.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” said Susan in an icy voice.
    She saw him frown.
    â€œI’ve been thinking it out since last night. If she took those pearls—and I can’t see how anyone else can have taken them—well, they won’t have gone very far. She hasn’t been out of the place since Wednesday, and she wouldn’t risk posting them in the village—if she did, they’ll be easily traced. But this afternoon she was going into Ledlington by the two o’clock bus—she might have reckoned on getting them away then. Now look here, Cathy, I’ve got a name for being a hard man, but I don’t want to be hard on you. I don’t know what you wanted money for, but I’d have given you anything in reason if you’d come and asked me to help you. You took my pearls instead. Well, I want them back. Make a clean breast of it and give them up, and I won’t prosecute.”
    Cathy lifted her head again. She had a lost look.
    â€œI—can’t——”
    Susan had a stab of fear.
    â€œWhy can’t you?” said Lucas Dale.
    Cathy began to shake. Between chattering teeth she stammered,
    â€œI—don’t—know——I didn’t take them—oh, I didn’t!”
    Dale shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œYou see—that’s all she says. I did my best before you came, but she won’t speak. Well, she’s had her chance. I asked you to come here because I think it’s most likely she’s got the pearls on her. Either that or they’re in her room at the Little House. If she’s got them here, they’ll be on her or in her bag. Will you turn out her bag first, and if they’re not there, will you take her up into one of the bedrooms and search her? I want to be quite sure before I ring up the police. You see, I’m trusting you.”
    Susan walked over to the chair with her head very high.
    â€œWhere’s your bag, Cathy?”
    It was Lucas Dale who answered.
    â€œIt’s over there on her table. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind getting it. I don’t want to have it in my hands.”
    Susan fetched the bag—Cathy’s old brown bag which went everywhere with her. It was when she was coming back with it that Cathy started up and ran to meet her.
    â€œGive it to me!”
    â€œCathy——”
    â€œYou mustn’t open it——” The words were in a stuttering whisper. They chilled Susan’s anger. They chilled her to her bones.
    â€œCathy——”
    â€œYou mustn’t, you mustn’t, you mustn’t!”
    â€œGo and sit down!”
    Cathy had never heard this voice from Susan before. She went back to the big chair and cowered down in it as if for shelter.
    Susan went up to the writing-table. She faced Lucas Dale across it and opened Cathy’s bag. It had an inner compartment which shut with a clasp. The two sides of it were stuffed quite full of odds and ends. Susan took them out one by one—an almost empty purse, two handkerchiefs, three pencils, a pencil sharpener, two bills and a receipt from shops in Ledlington, a letter in a bright blue envelope, a shopping list, a yard of brown ribbon, a powder compact, lipstick and a little round box of rouge, some acid drops in a paper bag, a small square pincushion stuffed full of pins, a ring of safety pins. There seemed to be no