At this precise moment out by the dovecote little Albert was with Mrs Jack's little girls. He knelt down while Miss Evelyn and Miss Moira stood dappled by leaf sunshine. The lad himself was shaded by that pierced tower of Pisa inside which a hundred ruby eyes were round.
'You're not ever goin' to bury it Bert?' Miss Evelyn enquired.
'Naw,' he replied picking up half an empty eggshell.
The sisters squatted. Opening his fist he displayed the ring, a small blaze of blue. He scooped it into that eggshell which he then placed with the unbroken end upwards, a pale bell over the jewel, under a tuft of sharp grass.
'You won't leave that out in the open?' Miss Moira asked.
'It's on account of them birds pinch rings,' he answered. 'If Mr Raunce come to find'm then we don't know a thing, the pigeons took'm see.'
'But doves don't steal rings Albert, you mean jackdaws.'
'Don't be so soft,' he said. 'Everyone knows doves will,' he ended.
'You'll lose it,' Miss Evelyn announced wondering.
'Rings don't walk,' he said, 'an' this shell's so them birds won't rout'm out,' he explained. They'd never think to turn an egg that's broken.'
'Well you are clever,' Miss Moira told him and meant it.
'I'm smart don't fear," he said, 'only I didn't ought to let you girls in on this. You'd never keep a secret. So you'll 'ave to take a oath see.'
'An oath?'
'That's right. You're to swear you won't never tell. It'll be special. This is 'ow it goes. While I break a cock's egg over your mouth you say, "My lips is sealed may I drop dead."'
'Cock's eggs?'
'Peacock's softy. I'll fetch me a couple.' As he ran off to that door he had seen Raunce come out of an another occasion he called back as he stumbled with urgency, 'Don't you stir from where you be.' He had picked up countrified expressions when he was evacuated.
'Well it's wicked I know,' Miss Moira said with satisfaction.
'How will you swear so the egg doesn't get in your mouth?' Miss Evelyn asked.
But they waited. In almost no time the lad was back. Then one of the girls objected. She said she wasn't going to stand for having that filthy sticky stuff on her face. The other wanted to know who she considered she was to think she couldn't, when Edith had hundreds of these eggs put away in waterglass against the time she might want them for her skin. And little Albert heard. And then made them both go through with it. They seemed delighted.
Meantime the assessor had been asking questions. Edith did not know so she said. Or she could not tell for certain she was sure. Mike Mathewson was getting nowhere. Albert kept silence. Then Raunce at last arrived, in his dark suit and without the bandage. He came quiet and Mike Mathewson did not hear him. He had to clear his throat to make this man turn round.
'Yes sir?' Charley asked.
'That'th all right my man,' Mike answered. 'Making a few en-quirieth that'th all.'
It might have been Raunce thought Edith looked upset. Not moving from the door he took a line.
'I'm sure Mrs Tennant would not wish for questions asked,' he said.
'Precithely why I wath thent,' Mr Mathewson replied, a green high light following out his nose.
'I'm afraid we can't have this,' Charley said firm. 'Mrs Tennant would never allow it.'
'Is it so?' Mike said grim, not lisping.
'I will have to ask you to leave that's all,' Charley went on and did not call him sir.
'But I have been thent.'
'Who by?'
Then Edith must have forgot herself. She interrupted.
'It's about the ring,' she said in a small voice.
'What ring?' Raunce wanted to know without a sign of any kind.
'Let'th thee,' Mike suggested. 'When Mr Tennant wath alive you uthed to be hith man I take it.'
'No I was not.'
'And you never heard of a ring being gone?' Mike asked in menacing fashion.
'Ow d'you mean?' Raunce enquired in a less educated voice.
'That'th thtrange,' Mathewson said almost genial, 'nobody theemth to know nothing.'
'What's strange about that?' Charley asked and began to squint. 'Come on you tell me. Who might you be for a start?'
'You're the butler?'
'What's that got to do with you? It's you we're talkin' about. Who're you?'
Edith broke in again.
'He's come about the insurance,' she explained and appealed.
'Nobody asked you,' her Charley said sharp but with a soft glance in her direction. 'You don't know nothing,' he added.
'Know nothing?' Mr Mathewson echoed. 'Mark what I'm thaying now. I never inthinuated thith young lady knew anything.' He spoke gently as if to ingratiate.
'In – what?' Charley asked.
'Inferred,' Mike Mathewson explained and now he spoke sharp. 'Don't try and be thmart with me. You'll find it don't work.'
'I wouldn't know what you're referrin' to,' Raunce said a bit daunted.
'The ring,' the assessor replied soft. The thapphire cluthter my company inthured on.'