"Your mother has allotted me an hour in which to find the valuable jewel
which has just been lost on these premises." Here I smiled. "She
evidently has great confidence in my ability. I must see that I do not
disappoint her."
All this time I was examining his face. It was a handsome one, as I have
said, but it had also a very candid expression; the eyes looked straight
into mine, and, while showing anxiety, betrayed no deeper emotion than
the occasion naturally called for.
"Have you any suggestions to offer? I understand that you were on the
ground almost as soon as Mr. Deane discovered his loss."
His eyes changed a trifle but did not swerve. Of course he had been
informed by his mother of the suspicious action of the young lady who
had been a member of that gentleman's party, and shrank, as any one in
his position would, from the responsibilities entailed by this
knowledge.
"No," said he. "We have done all we can. The next move must come from
you."
"There is one that will settle the matter in a moment," I assured him,
still with my eyes fixed scrutinizingly on his face,--"a universal
search, not of places, but of persons. But it is a harsh measure."
"A most disagreeable one," he emphasized, flushing. "Such an indignity
offered to guests would never be forgotten or forgiven."
"True, but if they offered to submit to this themselves?"
"They? How?"
"If _you_, the son of the house,--their host we may say,--should call
them together and, for your own satisfaction, empty out your pockets in
the sight of every one, don't you think that all the men, and possibly
all the women too--" (here I let my voice fall suggestively) "would be
glad to follow suit? It could be done in apparent joke."
He shook his head with a straight-forward air, which raised him high in
my estimation.
"That would call for little but effrontery on my part," said he; "but
think what it would demand from these boys who came here for the sole
purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention the
ladies."
"Yet one of the latter--"
"I know," he quietly acknowledged, growing restless for the first time.
I withdrew my eyes from his face. I had learned what I wished.
Personally he did not shrink from search, therefore the jewel was not in
his pockets. This left but two persons for suspicion to halt between.
But I disclosed nothing of my thoughts; I merely asked pardon for a
suggestion that, while pardonable in a man accustomed to handle crime
with ungloved hands, could not fail to prove offensive to a gentleman
like himself.
"We must move by means less open," I concluded. "It adds to our
difficulties, but that can not be helped. I should now like a glimpse of
Mr. Deane."
"Do you not wish to speak to him?"
"I should prefer a sight of his face first."
He led me across the hall and pointed through an open door. In the
center of a small room containing a table and some chairs, I perceived a
young man sitting, with fallen head and dejected air, staring at
vacancy. By his side, with hand laid on his, knelt a young girl,
striving in this gentle but speechless way to comfort him. It made a
pathetic picture. I drew Ashley away.
"I am disposed to believe in that young man," said I. "If he still has
the jewel, he would not try to carry off the situation in just this way.
He really looks broken-hearted."
"Oh, he is dreadfully cut up. If you could have seen how frantically he
searched for the stone, and the depression into which he fell when he
realized that it was not to be found, you would not doubt him for an
instant. What made you think he might still have the ruby?"
"Oh, we police officers think of everything. Then the fact that he
insists that something or some one touched his breast on the driveway
strikes me as a trifle suspicious. Your mother says that no second
person could have been there, or the snow would have given evidence of
it."
"Yes; I looked expressly. Of course, the drive itself was full of
hoof-marks and wheel-tracks, for several carriages had already passed
over it. Then there were all of Deane's footsteps, but no other man's,
as far as I could see."
"Yet he insists that he was touched or struck."
"Yes."
"With no one there to touch or strike him."
Mr. Ashley was silent.
"Let us step out and take a view of the place," I suggested. "I should
prefer doing this to questioning the young man in his present state of
mind." Then, as we turned to put on our coats, I asked with suitable
precaution: "Do you suppose that he has the same secret suspicions as
ourselves, and that it is to hide these he insists upon the jewel's
having been taken away from him at a point the ladies are known not to
have approached?"
Young Ashley bent somewhat startled eyes on mine.
"Nothing has been said to him of what Miss Peters saw Miss Glover do. I
could not bring myself to mention it. I have not even allowed myself to
believe--"
Here a fierce gust, blowing in from the door he had just opened, cut
short his words, and neither of us spoke again till we stood on the
exact spot in the driveway where the episode we were endeavoring to
understand had taken place.
"Oh," I cried as soon as I could look about me; "the mystery is
explained. Look at that bush, or perhaps you call it a shrub. If the
wind were blowing as freshly as it is now, and very probably it was, one
of those slender branches might easily be switched against his breast,
especially if he stood, as you say he did, close against this border."
"Well, I'm a fool. Only the other day I told the gardener that these
branches would need trimming in the spring, and yet I never so much as
thought of them when Mr. Deane spoke of something striking his breast."
As we turned back I made this remark:
"With this explanation of the one doubtful point in his otherwise
plausible account, we can credit his story as being in the main true,
which," I calmly added, "places him above suspicion and narrows our
inquiry down to _one_."
We had moved quickly and were now at the threshold of the door by which
we had come out.
"Mr. Ashley," I continued, "I shall have to ask you to add to your
former favors that of showing me the young lady in whom, from this
moment on, we are especially interested. If you can manage to let me see
her first without her seeing me, I shall be infinitely obliged to you."
"I do not know where she is. I shall have to search for her."
"I will wait by the hall door."
In a few minutes he returned to me. "Come," said he, and led me into
what I judged to be the library.
With a gesture toward one of the windows, he backed quickly out, leaving
me to face the situation alone. I was rather glad of this. Glancing in
the direction he had indicated, and perceiving the figure of a young
lady standing with her back to me on the farther side of a flowing lace
curtain, I took a few steps toward her, hoping that the movement would
cause her to turn. But it entirely failed to produce this effect, nor
did she give any sign that she noted the intrusion. This prevented me
from catching the glimpse of her face which I so desired, and obliged me
to confine myself to a study of her dress and attitude.
The former was very elegant, more elegant than the appearance of her two
friends had led me to expect. Though I am far from being an authority on
feminine toilets, I yet had experience enough to know that those
sweeping folds of spotless satin, with their festoons of lace and loops
of shiny trimming, which it would be folly for me to attempt to
describe, represented not only the best efforts of the dressmaker's art,
but very considerable means on the part of the woman wearing such a
gown. This was a discovery which altered the complexion of my thoughts
for a moment; for I had presupposed her a girl of humble means, willing
to sacrifice certain scruples to obtain a little extra money. This
imposing figure might be that of a millionaire's daughter; how then
could I associate her, even in my own mind, with theft? I decided that I
must see her face before giving answer to these doubts.
She did not seem inclined to turn. She had raised the shade from before
the wintry panes and was engaged in looking out. Her attitude was not
that of one simply enjoying a moment's respite from the dance. It was
rather that of an absorbed mind brooding upon what gave little or no
pleasure; and as I further gazed and noted the droop of her lovely
shoulders and the languor visible in her whole bearing, I began to
regard a glimpse of her features as imperative. Moving forward, I came
upon her suddenly.
"Excuse me, Miss Smith," I boldly exclaimed; then paused, for she had
turned instinctively and I had seen that for which I had risked this
daring move. "Your pardon," I hastily apologized. "I mistook you for
another young lady," and drew back with a low bow to let her pass, for I
saw that she thought only of escaping both me and the room.
And I did not wonder at this, for her eyes were streaming with tears,
and her face, which was doubtless a pretty one under ordinary
conditions, looked so distorted with distracting emotions that she was
no fit subject for any man's eye, let alone that of a hard-hearted
officer of the law on the lookout for the guilty hand which had just
appropriated a jewel worth anywhere from eight to ten thousand dollars.
Yet I was glad to see her weep, for only first offenders weep, and first
offenders are amenable to influence, especially if they have been led
into wrong by impulse and are weak rather than wicked.
Anxious to make no blunder, I resolved, before proceeding further, to
learn what I could of the character and antecedents of the suspected
one, and this from the only source which offered--Mr. Deane's affianced.
This young lady was a delicate girl, with a face like a flower.
Recognizing her sensitive nature, I approached her with the utmost
gentleness. Not seeking to disguise either the nature of my business or
my reasons for being in the house, since all this gave me authority, I
modulated my tone to suit her gentle spirit, and, above all, I showed
the utmost sympathy for her lover, whose rights in the reward had been
taken from him as certainly as the jewel had been taken from Mrs.
Burton. In this way I gained her confidence, and she was quite ready to
listen when I observed:
"There is a young lady here who seems to be in a state of even greater
trouble than Mr. Deane. Why is this? You brought her here. Is her
sympathy with Mr. Deane so great as to cause her to weep over his loss?"
"Frances? Oh, no. She likes Mr. Deane and she likes me, but not well
enough to cry over our misfortunes. I think she has some trouble of her
own."
"One that you can tell me?"
Her surprise was manifest.
"Why do you ask that? What interest have you (called in, as I
understand, to recover a stolen jewel) in Frances Glover's personal
difficulties?"