Thick As Thieves Read Online Free Page A

in that Mr. Dalton was proven an honest man.
    "I trust that is not a slur on my honesty, ma'am," he said playfully.
    "Certainly not. It is merely a comment on my luck. Thank you for bringing the ring. Have you time for a glass of wine?"
    "I judge by your elegant toilettes that you ladies are going out," he replied, using it as an excuse to ogle me. "You must not let me detain you."
    "No hurry, sir. One does not arrive on time for a rout, or folks think you have been sitting, waiting for it to begin."
    "A rout?" Hennie said, in a questioning tone.
    I stared her down and rang for Tumble, who came and poured the wine. Tumble had done service in the stately homes of England, and had been hired for his appearance and his social skills. He looks as a butler should look, which is to say like a gentleman without any sense of humor whatsoever. When he is sober, he is an excellent butler. I trusted his instincts would prevent him from mentioning that my carriage was waiting, and that if I did not hop it, I would be late for the play.
    Dalton accepted the wine and sat down for a little chat. "I hope you will not think it presumptuous of me, Miss Denver," he said, "but I am very curious to hear why you took your ring to Parker." His eyes slid around the room, finding enough valuable furniture and artwork there to furnish two saloons. "That fellow is not quite the thing, you must know."
    "He is as crooked as a dog's hind leg," I said with some warmth. "I know perfectly well he pried the diamond out of a ring I left with him, and replaced it with glass."
    "Ah, you pawned two rings," he said, nodding wisely.
    "Just the one, actually," Hennie said.
    Dalton frowned in forgivable confusion. "I must have misunderstood. You said this afternoon that you had just redeemed this emerald ring."
    "Redeemed is one way of putting it," Hennie said.
    Dalton looked so suspicious that I decided to enlighten him before he thought me worse than I was. I did not feel my action was stealing, in the normal sense of the word.
    In short, I confessed the whole seamy business, holding back only that I had purposely put the emerald ring in his pocket. He did not call me a thief, but I sensed an air of disapproval about him. The Atlantic eyes turned darker and stormier as I spoke. "Strange he should have a paste stone of the proper size to replace your diamond," he said.
    "He had a couple of days to acquire one, Mr. Dalton. Here, this is the ring he removed the diamond from," I said, drawing it from my reticule, where I had tossed it that afternoon. "Glass, you see. It was a diamond when I left it there two days before." I explained about the small chip in one corner.
    Dalton examined it carefully. "I can see the tool marks on the mounting prongs," he said. "This was obviously a rushed job." Then he lilted his head and smiled. "Allow me to congratulate you on your swift thinking, Miss Denver."
    "She really ought not to have done it," Hennie said uncertainly. Her lingering sense of morality expected some condemnation from Mr. Dalton.
    "Mrs. Henderson's late husband was a vicar," I explained.
    "At St. Martin's, in Cranbrook," Hennie added.
    "A fine old perpendicular church, if memory serves?"
    "Yes, have you seen it?" she asked, brightening.
    "Only from the outside."
    "You should tour it next time you are in Cranbrook, Mr. Dalton. It has an old baptistry for complete immersion, dating from the eighteenth century. We did not use it, of course."
    "I seem to remember hearing something of the sort."
    I had the peculiar feeling that Hennie's being a vicar's widow raised us in Dalton's esteem. It is hard to describe, but a new sort of warmth entered his conversation. It was as if he had not quite believed my story, but Hennie's clerical association removed the doubt.
    There followed some general conversation peppered throughout by a series of discreet questions that eventually revealed our harmless history. Of course, I did not crop out into an announcement of my fortune, but