"Your father was a stubborn man, too," he said quietly, "and look what happened to him." He put on his hat. "Oh, and Miss Hartley, if you are hoping that the Duke will come galloping to your rescue, I would think again. He stood beside my daughter at the ball and announced their engagement to three hundred people. He did not mention you once. In nine days, he will be my son-in-law." He smiled one last time. "Good night."
He turned and walked down the dark stairs. A moment later, Clara heard the carriage door slam and the wheels rolling away into the fog.
Clara closed the door and bolted it. Then she slid down to the floor with her back against it, shaking from head to foot.
"Clara," Polly whispered from the bed. "Clara, come here."
Clara crawled across the cold floor and climbed into the narrow bed beside her sister. Polly put her thin arms around her.
"You did the right thing," Polly whispered. "Papa would be so proud."
Clara held her tight and said nothing, because she did not know if she had just saved their father's name or killed her own sister.
She did not sleep; she sat up for the rest of the night thinking. They would come for her—she knew that now—and when they came, they would search her and find the key.
So, just before dawn, by the light of a single candle, Clara carefully unpicked the hem of her petticoat. She took out the old iron key with its little brass tag. Then she took Polly's ragged old rag doll from the end of the bed—the doll their mother had made years ago from scraps of blue cloth, which Polly had slept with every night of her life. Clara opened a seam in the doll's side, slipped the key deep into the stuffing, and sewed it closed again with tiny, invisible stitches.
She put the doll into Polly's sleeping arms. "Keep her close," she whispered, kissing her sister's hot forehead. "Never let her go, not for anyone."
They came at 7:00 in the morning. Clara heard heavy boots on the stairs, then a fist pounded on the door so hard that the frame shook.
"Open up, in the name of the law!"
Clara opened the door. Two constables stood there in their dark coats. Behind them, on the landing, Mrs. Crabbe was watching with her arms folded and a nasty look of satisfaction on her face.
"Clara Bell," said the first constable, "also known as Clara Hartley."
"Yes."
"You are under arrest for the theft of a diamond bracelet from Ravenshire Hall. You'll come with us."
They searched her right there in the doorway: turned out her pockets, searched her bag, pulled apart her two old dresses, and felt along every seam. They found nothing but a few pennies and her father's old letter, which the constable glanced at and tossed back to her with a shrug. They did not look twice at the sick girl in the bed clutching an old rag doll to her chest.