All day both Mr. and Mrs. Bennett were unpleasantly conscious of their
undigested altercation lying black and gloomy in the back of their
minds. At lunch-time he tried to call her on the telephone; but the
wire did not answer. Indeed, she had gone to spend the day in town with
friends, and was to go to dinner and the theatre with them. She left no
message for Harry, and gave the cook permission to go out overnight.
About nine o'clock he got home tired and eager to resume their usual
blissful companionship. The house was dark and untenanted. In a rage, he
threw away the box of candy he had brought, and got himself some bread
and cheese from the ice-box.
In the dining room his eye fell upon the coffee-urn. He swore at it.
Just then Elaine called him up, and in a cool, distant voice told him
that she had decided to spend the night in town with her mother.
The next morning Elaine came home about ten o'clock, humming a merry
little air as she walked down the quiet suburban street. She and Harry
had patched things up over the telephone at breakfast-time.
The sun was shining brightly, and she was planning a specially nice
dinner for poor Harry that evening. After all, it wasn't the dear boy's
fault that he had to work so hard. It was horrible of her to run off and
desert him that way. Tonight she would show him how much she loved him.
They would have ice cream with hot chocolate sauce, and meringues and
chicken salad; and she would buy him a cigar and hide it in his napkin.
And the old coffee-um should go back in the glass cabinet.
*****
The cook, with a very grave face, opened the front door.
“Heavens, Emily, what's the matter?” cried Mrs. Bennett.
“Burgled!” said Emily, tragically. “Someone's been an' bruk in the
dining-room winder. Footpads, I guess.”
Mrs. Bennett gave a little shriek of dismay She ran to the dining room.
One window stood an inch or two open, and one of the panes was broken.
She glanced round the room. Nothing was disarranged, but her glance fell
on the sideboard.
The coffee-urn was gone!
“Well,” she said, “that's very extraordinary. Mr. Bennett slept here
last night, and he's a light sleeper. He always locks the windows before
he goes to bed. Is anything else missing?”
“The apple pie's gone out o' the ice-box,” said Emily.
“Oh, well, that's Mr. Bennett, I'm sure,” said Elaine. “I'll call up the
police right away, and see if they can do anything. My nice coffee-urn!
Why, it's the finest thing we had in the whole house.”
Before the police arrived, Mrs. Bennett herself took a careful look
round the outside of the house. She found nothing unusual except a
cigar butt lying on the ground near the broken window. She picked it up
gingerly. A section of the gilt band still adhered to the wrapper. She
could read the name, _Florona._ She carried the fragment into the cellar
and threw it into the ash-can.
Two policemen arrived shortly, examined everything, and asked
innumerable questions. Mrs. Bennett gave them a careful description of
the coffee-urn. They departed, promising to do everything possible to
trace it. They said that a piece of silver so large and unusual would
not be hard to locate with the aid of the pawnbrokers. Then Mrs. Bennett
went upstairs to think.
It seemed very strange that the thieves should take the urn and nothing
else, when there were other pieces of silver beside it on the sideboard.
She called up Harry, who was horrified to learn of the loss. He had
slept right through the night without hearing a sound. He offered to
come home if he could do anything to help; but she would not hear of it.
That night Mrs. Bennett had a special little dinner waiting for her
husband: his favourite soup, a tender steak, fried potatoes, ice cream
with hot chocolate sauce. And after dinner they discussed the theft of
the urn.
“I don't understand how it was that you didn't hear anything,” said
Elaine. “You generally sleep so lightly. Did you sit up late?”
“No,” he said; “I sat in the dining room until about ten, eating cheese
and apple pie, and smoking a cigar. Then I went to bed----”
“Oh, you just reminded me!” cried Elaine. “I bought you a nice cigar to
smoke after your dinner, and I forgot to give it to you.”
From the mantelpiece she gave him a cigar with a _Florona_ band.
“Why, isn't that nice!” said he, “That's the kind I always smoke. I
didn't think you knew one brand from the other.”
“I know more than you think, old man,” she said.
When Harry came home the next night, he brought a bulky parcel with him.
“I'm awfully sorry about the urn, Brownie,” he said. “I went to see the
detectives to-day, and they think there's very little chance of getting
it back; so I brought you this to take its place.” She opened the
package. It was a big China coffee-jug of rose-and-white porcelain,
flagrantly out of harmony with her silver and blue china.
“Honey,” she said, “I think it's just lovely. It's ever and ever so much
nicer than that old urn.”
A week later, in the afternoon, the local chief of police called up Mrs.
Bennett.
“Come down here to the police station,” he said. “We've found your
coffee-pot. The most extraordinary thing you ever heard of. We found it
buried in a haystack, back of Webster's barn. Why any one should leave
it there is more than I know. The thief must have been frightened and
hid it. Will you come down and identify it?”
Mrs. Bennett hastened down to the police station. There on the
sergeant's table stood the famous urn, the pride of her heart. There was
no doubt about it: the initials were there--it was hers. Tarnished and
spotted by exposure, it was still the handsomest piece of silver she had
ever seen. Involuntarily she gave a cry of delight. Then she hesitated.
After all, compared to Harry's happiness and hers, what was a silver
urn?
“Oh, captain,” she said, “I'm so disappointed. That's not mine! It's
very much like it, but it isn't mine.”