Hole and Corner by Patricia Wentworth

Damozel Struck pleasantly upon her ear. She came into the room with the salver in her hand. The old grampus—she’d be cross if she waked, and she’d never own up to having been asleep, any more than Cook would.
    The head of the sofa was towards her. She came up to it and looked over. Mrs Huddleston was lying on her back with her mouth wide open. The embroidered coverlet only came up to her waist. The laces of the blue silk tea-gown gaped above it unfastened. Bessie caught her lip between her teeth in her excitement. The diamond brooch had been fastening those laces at lunch-time, and it wasn’t fastening them now. That meant that the damaged catch had done what she meant it to do when she damaged it. “Good work—good work, Bessie, my girll” She bit her lip again, harder this time. What did she want to go and say that for—reminding herself about Ted? Ted was in jug, and she’d got to do this job for him. She wanted all her nerve for it, because she hated working alone, so what was the sense of thinking about Ted like this?
    She looked about her with quick, prying eyes. She hadn’t really expected to get a chance to-day, and so she’d told Al Phillips. It might be a day or two, she’d told him—“But with the catch damaged, the brooch’ll lie about a bit before she sends it off to be mended. Never does nothing on the nail, so Possett says, and when things lie about there’s always chances—only of course we’ve got to fit it in with Miss Dale being there.” That’s what she’d said, and now it looked like getting a chance right away. If she could only put her hand on the brooch—
    She came round the couch, still holding the salver. The fire was burning brightly, and her eyes had got accustomed to the light. She looked along the mantelpiece and saw the brooch. It lay tilted forward against the spreading skirt of the Dresden shepherdess with the powdered hair and the silly fly-away hat with roses all round the crown. The skirt was a very pale blue. The diamonds leaned against it and winked in the firelight.
    Bessie took two steps forward, picked up the brooch, and went straight on past the head of the couch and out of the room. She shut the door behind her carefully. Mrs Huddleston had never moved except to snore, and she had never stopped snoring. Nothing could have been easier.
    She crossed over to the coat-stand. Only one coat hung there—Miss Shirley Dale’s dark grey coat with the black astrakhan collar. As she passed the hall table, she got rid of the salver, and dived into her apron pocket for a pair of nail scissors. It doesn’t take a moment to rip a hole in a pocket lining. She chose the left-hand pocket because Miss Dale wasn’t so likely to slip her hand into it. She probably wouldn’t notice the hole if she did, but there was no sense in taking risks. It was a good coat, and the lining was the very best quality silk. The fur was good too—none of your cheap imitations. Miss Dale couldn’t have afforded to buy a coat like that. She must have had it given to her.
    Bessie’s mind was like that. It went sniffing round like a terrier after rats even in the midst of a job. It would mean jug if she was caught, and a hundred pounds from Al if she pulled it off, but she couldn’t keep herself from wondering about Shirley’s coat.
    She pushed the brooch through the slit in the pocket, and then worked it along the hem until she got it right sound at the back where the coat was slit up and lapped over. It wouldn’t show there at all. “A very neat job, Bessie, my girl.” Stupid, stupid, stupid to go thinking of Ted again.
    She turned round quickly and ran upstairs. So far, so good. But that was only half the job. It was she who had suggested piling up the evidence against Shirley Dale by taking the emeralds too. Al Phillips hadn’t been so sure about the emeralds. He thought the