Statement of Sophy Jeffers, lady’s maid to the Marchioness of Castlecourt....

I   HAD been in Lady Castlecourt’s service two years when the Castlecourt diamonds were stolen. I am not going to give an account of how I was suspected and cleared. That’s not the part of the story I’m here to set down. It’s about the disappearance of the diamonds that I’m to tell, and I’m ready to do it to the best of my ability. We were in London, at Burridge’s Hotel, for the season. Lord Castlecourt’s town house at Grosvenor Gate was let to some rich Americans, and for two years now we had s

I  NEVER was so glad of anything in my life as to get out of that beastly hole, Chicago. I’ll certainly never go back there unless there is an inducement big enough to compensate for the elevated railroad, the lake, the noise, the winds, the restaurants, the climate, and the people. Ugh, what a nightmare! England’s the country for me, and London is the focus of it. You can live like a Christian here, and enjoy all the refinements and decencies of life for a reasonable consideration. How my heart

WE HAD been in London two years when a series of extraordinary events took place which involved us, through no fault of our own, in the most unpleasant predicament that ever overtook two honest, respectable Americans in a foreign country. I had been sent over to start the English branch of the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage Company, one of the biggest concerns of the Middle West, and it wasn’t two months before I realized that the venture was going to catch on, and I was going to be at the head

AT A quarter before eight on the evening of May fourth a telephone message was sent to Scotland Yard that a diamond necklace, the property of the Marquis of Castlecourt, had been stolen from Burridge’s Hotel. Brison, one of the best of their men, was detailed upon the case, and three days later my services were engaged by the marquis. After investigations which have occupied several weeks, I have become convinced that the case is an unusual and complicated one. The reasons which have led me to t

I  BELIEVE it is not necessary for me to state how a chamois-skin bag containing one hundred and sixty-two diamonds came into my hands on the evening of May 14th. That it did come into my possession was enough for me. I never before thought that the possession of diamonds could make a woman so perfectly miserable. When I was a young girl in Necropolis City I used to think to own a diamond—even one small one—would be just about the acme of human joy. But Necropolis City is a good way behind me no

I  AM sure if any one was ever punished for their misdeeds it was I. I suppose I ought to say sins, but it is such an unpleasant word! I can not imagine myself committing sins, and yet that is just what I seem to have done. I couldn’t have been more astonished if some one had told me I was going to commit a murder. One thing I have learned—you do not know what you may do till you have been tried and tempted. And then you do wrong before you realize it, and all of a sudden it comes upon you that