"Lizzie
Eustace has just come back to London, and has had all her jewels stolen on
the road."
"The diamonds?" asked Lucy with amaze.
"Yes, the Eustace diamonds! And they didn't belong to her any more than
they did to you. They've been taken any way, and from what I hear I
shouldn't be at all surprised if she had arranged the whole matter
herself."
"Arranged that they should be stolen?"
"Just that, my dear. It would be the very thing for Lizzie Eustace to do.
She's clever enough for anything."
"But, Lady Linlithgow----"
"I know all about that. Of course it would be very wicked, and if it were
found out she'd be put in the dock and tried for her life. It is just what
I expect she'll come to some of these days. She has gone and got up a
friendship with some disreputable people, and was travelling with them.
There was a man who calls himself Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. I know
him, and can remember when he was errand boy to a disreputable lawyer at
Aberdeen." This assertion was a falsehood on the part of the countess.
Lord George had never been an errand boy, and the Aberdeen lawyer--as
provincial Scotch lawyers go--had been by no means disreputable.
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