her, and she watched them quite intently as they leaped to the ground
and made their way toward the porch. One went on quickly, and without
pause, to the step, but the other,--the one who came last,--did not do
this. She stopped a moment, perhaps to watch the horse in front, perhaps
to draw her cloak more closely about her, and when she again moved on,
it was with a start and a hurried glance at her feet, terminating in a
quick turn and a sudden stooping to the ground. When she again stood
upright, she had something in her hand which she thrust furtively into
her breast."
"How was this lady dressed?" I inquired.
"In a white cloak, with an edging of fur. I took pains to learn that,
too, and it was with some curiosity, I assure you, that I examined the
few guests who had now been admitted to the room I had so carefully
pointed out to my son. Two of them wore white cloaks, but one of these
was Mrs. Dalrymple, and I did not give her or her cloak a second
thought. The other was a tall, fine-looking girl, with an air and
bearing calculated to rouse admiration if she had not shown so very
plainly that she was in a state of inner perturbation. Though she tried
to look amiable and pleased, I saw that she had some care on her mind,
which, had she been Mr. Deane's _fiancee_, would have needed no
explanation; but as she was only Mr. Deane's _fiancee's_ friend, its
cause was not so apparent.
"The floor of the room, as I had happily remembered, was covered with
crash, and as I lifted each garment off--I allowed no maid to assist me
in this--I shook it well; ostensibly, because of the few flakes clinging
to it, really to see if anything could be shaken out of it. Of course, I
met with no success. I had not expected to, but it is my disposition to
be thorough. These wraps I saw all hung in an adjoining closet, the door
of which I locked,--here is the key,--after which I handed my guests
over to my son who led them into the drawing-room where they joined the
few others who had previously arrived, and went myself to telephone to
_you_."
I bowed and asked where the young people were now.
"Still in the drawing-room. I have ordered the musicians to play, and
consequently there is more or less dancing. But, of course, nothing can
remove the wet blanket which has fallen over us all,--nothing but the
finding of this jewel. Do you see your way to accomplishing this? We
are, from this very moment, at your disposal; only I pray that you will
make no more disturbance than is necessary, and, if possible, arouse no
suspicions you can not back up by facts. I dread a scandal almost as
much as I do sickness and death, and these young people--well, their
lives are all before them, and neither Mrs. Burton nor myself would wish
to throw the shadow of a false suspicion over the least of them."
I assured her that I sympathized with her scruples and would do my best
to recover the ruby without inflicting undue annoyance upon the
innocent. Then I inquired whether it was known that a detective had been
called in. She seemed to think it was suspected by some, if not by all.
At which my way seemed a trifle complicated.
We were about to proceed when another thought struck me.
"Madam, you have not said whether the carriage itself was searched."
"I forgot. Yes, the carriage was thoroughly overhauled, and before the
coachman left the box."
"Who did this overhauling?"
"My son. He would not trust any other hand than his own in a business of
this kind."
"One more question, madam. Was any one seen to approach Mr. Deane on the
carriage-drive prior to his assertion that the jewel was lost?"
"No. _And there were no tracks in the snow of any such person._ My son
looked."
And I would look, or so I decided within myself, but I said nothing; and
in silence we proceeded toward the drawing-room.
I had left my overcoat behind me, and always being well-dressed, I did
not present so bad an appearance. Still I was not in party attire and
naturally could not pass for a guest if I had wanted to, which I did
not. I felt that I must rely on insight in this case and on a certain
power I had always possessed of reading faces. That the case called for
just this species of intuition I was positive. Mrs. Burton's ruby was
within a hundred yards of us at this very moment, probably within a
hundred feet; but to lay hands on it and without scandal--well, that was
a problem calculated to rouse the interest of even an old police-officer
like myself.
A strain of music, desultory, however, and spiritless, like everything
else about the place that night, greeted us as Mrs. Ashley opened the
door leading directly into the large front hall.
Immediately a scene meant to be festive, but which was, in fact,
desolate, burst upon us. The lights, the flowers and the brilliant
appearance of such ladies as flitted into sight from the almost empty
parlors, were all suggestive of the cheer suitable to a great occasion;
but in spite of this, the effect was altogether melancholy, for the
hundreds who should have graced this scene, and for whom this
illumination had been made and these festoons hung, had been turned away
from the gates, and the few who felt they must remain, because their
hostess showed no disposition to let them go, wore any but holiday
faces, for all their forced smiles and pitiful attempts at nonchalance
and gaiety.
I scrutinized these faces carefully. I detected nothing in them but
annoyance at a situation which certainly was anything but pleasant.
Turning to Mrs. Ashley, I requested her to be kind enough to point out
her son, adding that I should be glad to have a moment's conversation
with him, also with Mr. Deane.
"Mr. Deane is in one of those small rooms over there. He is quite upset.
Not even Mrs. Burton can comfort him. My son-- Oh, there is Harrison!"
A tall, fine-looking young man was crossing the hall. Mrs. Ashley called
him to her, and in another moment we were standing together in one of
the empty parlors.
I gave him my name and told him my business. Then I said:
"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 straightforward 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 look-out 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?"
I saw that I must make my position perfectly plain.
"Only this. She was seen to pick up something from the driveway, where
no one else had succeeded in finding anything."
"She? When? Who saw her?"
"I can not answer all these questions at once," I smiled. "She was seen
to do this--no matter by whom,--during your passage from the carriage to
the stoop. As you preceded her, you naturally did not observe this
action, which was fortunate, perhaps, as you would scarcely have known
what to do or say about it."
"Yes I should," she retorted, with a most unexpected display of spirit.
"I should have asked her what she had found and I should have insisted
upon an answer. I love my friends, but I love the man I am to marry,
better." Here her voice fell and a most becoming blush suffused her
cheek.
"Quite right," I assented. "Now will you answer my former question? What
troubles Miss Glover? Can you tell me?"
"That I can not. I only know that she has been very silent ever since
she left the house. I thought her beautiful new dress would please her,
but it does not seem to. She has been unhappy and preoccupied all the
evening. She only roused a bit when Mr. Deane showed us the ruby and
said-- Oh, I forgot!"
"What's that? What have you forgot?"
"What you said just now. I wouldn't add a word--"
"Pardon me!" I smilingly interrupted, looking as fatherly as I could,
"but you have added this word and now you must tell me what it means.
You were going to say she showed interest in the extraordinary jewel
which Mr. Deane took from his pocket and--"
"In what he let fall about the expected reward. That is, she looked
eagerly at the ruby and sighed when he acknowledged that he expected it
to bring him five hundred dollars before midnight. But any girl of no
more means than she might do that. It would not be fair to lay too much
stress on a sigh."
"Is not Miss Glover wealthy? She wears a very expensive dress, I
observe."
"I know it and I have wondered a little at it, for her father is not
called very well off. But perhaps she bought it with her own money; I
know she has some; she is an artist in burnt wood."
I let the subject of Miss Glover's dress drop. I had heard enough to
satisfy me that my first theory was correct. This young woman,
beautifully dressed, and with a face from which the rounded lines of
early girlhood had not yet departed, held in her possession, probably
at this very moment, Mrs. Burton's magnificent jewel. But where? On her
person or hidden in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in
the closet and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not
secreted in this garment, before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs.
Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of
this, and presently I had this poor girl's cloak in my hands.
Did I find the ruby? No; but I found something else tucked away in an
inner pocket which struck me as bearing quite pointedly upon this case.
It was the bill--crumpled, soiled and tear-stained--of the dress whose
elegance had so surprised her friends and made me, for a short time,
regard her as the daughter of wealthy parents. An enormous bill, which
must have struck dismay to the soul of this self-supporting girl, who
probably had no idea of how a French dressmaker can foot up items. Four
hundred and fifty dollars! and for one gown! I declare I felt indignant
myself and could quite understand why she heaved that little sigh when
Mr. Deane spoke of the five hundred dollars he expected from Mrs.
Burton, and later, how she came to succumb to the temptation of making
the effort to secure this sum for herself when, in following the
latter's footsteps up the driveway, she stumbled upon this same jewel
fallen, as it were, from his pocket into her very hands. The impulse of
the moment was so strong and the consequences so little anticipated!
It is not at all probable that she foresaw he would shout aloud his loss
and draw the whole household out on the porch. Of course when he did
this, the feasibility of her project was gone, and I only wished that I
had been present and able to note her countenance, as, crowded in with
others on that windy porch, she watched the progress of the search,
which every moment made it not only less impossible for her to attempt
the restoration upon which the reward depended, but must have caused her
to feel, if she had been as well brought up as all indications showed,
that it was a dishonest act of which she had been guilty and that,
willing or not, she must look upon herself as a thief so long as she
held the jewel back from Mr. Deane or its rightful owner. But how face
the publicity of restoring it now, after this elaborate and painful
search, in which even the son of her hostess had taken part?
That would be to proclaim her guilt and thus effectually ruin her in the
eyes of everybody concerned. No, she would keep the compromising article
a little longer, in the hope of finding some opportunity of returning it
without risk to her good name. And so she allowed the search to proceed.
I have entered thus elaborately into the supposed condition of this
girl's mind on this critical evening, that you may understand why I felt
a certain sympathy for her, which forbade harsh measures. I was sure,
from the glimpse I had caught of her face, that she longed to be
relieved from the tension she was under, and that she would gladly rid
herself of this valuable jewel if she only knew how. This opportunity I
proposed to give her; and this is why, on returning the bill to its
place, I assumed such an air of relief on rejoining Mrs. Ashley.
She saw, and drew me aside.
"You have not found it!" she said.
"No," I returned, "but I am positive where it is."
"And where is that?"
"Over Miss Glover's uneasy heart."
Mrs. Ashley turned pale.
"Wait," said I; "I have a scheme for getting it hence without making her
shame public. Listen!" and I whispered a few words in her ear.
She surveyed me in amazement for a moment, then nodded, and her face
lighted up.
"You are certainly earning your reward," she declared; and summoning her
son, who was never far away from her side, she whispered her wishes. He
started, bowed and hurried from the room.
By this time my business in the house was well-known to all, and I could
not appear in hall or parlor without a great silence falling upon every
one present, followed by a breaking up of the only too small circle of
unhappy guests into agitated groups. But I appeared to see nothing of
all this till the proper moment, when, turning suddenly upon them all, I
cried out cheerfully, but with a certain deference I thought would
please them:
"Ladies and gentlemen: I have an interesting fact to announce. The snow
which was taken up from the driveway has been put to melt in the great
feed caldron over the stable fire. We expect to find the ruby at the
bottom, and Mrs. Ashley invites you to be present at its recovery. It
has now stopped snowing and she thought you might enjoy the excitement
of watching the water ladled out."
A dozen girls bounded forward.
"Oh, yes, what fun! where are our cloaks--our rubbers?"