“That’s mighty nice of you,” Trent responded warmly. It was at a moment like this when he realized he was deceiving a good sportsman that he hated the life he had chosen. It was one of the reasons that he denied himself friends. “Did she have any sort of scrap with Miss Thompson?”
“It’s too mild a word,” said Westward. “After the nurse’s things were searched she was told to go. Then she said she should bring an action against Mrs. Apthorpe for defamation of character and illegal search. She promised that there would be enough scandal unearthed to satisfy even the yellow press. I don’t suppose poor Amelia Apthorpe knew there were such lurid words in or out of the dictionary until the Thompson woman flung them at her.”
“I think she’s too shrewd. From what Hugh Fanwood told me they had looked up her record and found it shady. She _was_ a graduate nurse once. Her diploma is genuine and the doctor here tells me she knew her business, but there are other things that she wouldn’t want in print. I think we’ve seen the last of her. She’ll get her fifty thousand dollars and when she’s gone through that she’ll find some other old fool to fall for her.”
So far, Trent’s conjecture as to her character had been accurate. The death of Apthorpe meant a large sum of money to her while the legacy remained unrevoked. He could not marry her since he was not divorced from his wife. Perhaps he had believed in her sufficiently to show her his peerless emerald. Or perhaps he had only hinted at its glories and she had become possessed of the secret of its whereabouts. In any case Anthony Trent firmly believed she had it. It was quite likely that she had secreted it somewhere in the grounds of the mansion to retrieve it without risk later on. What woman except Nurse Thompson would have lowered herself from the room to the turf below on the night of the murder? And was it not likely that the emerald was the cause of the tragedy? The whole history of precious stones could be written in blood. In any case it was a working hypothesis sound enough for Trent to have faith in.
In accordance with the advice of lawyers and relatives Mrs. Andrew Apthorpe decided to place no obstacle in the way of the departure of Nurse Thompson. She told Mrs. Westward she was certain the woman had taken the diamond ring she flaunted and that it had not been a gift, as she claimed, from her employer. Furthermore it was evident that she had made a good deal of money in padding the household expenses.