STOLEN!
"Nan, it's a letter from Rhoda," Bess repeated the information twice
before she got any response at all, and then it was only a grunt. It was
the morning after the famous mule-back excursion, and Nan was in her
room alone until Bess's entrance.
"Whatever are you doing?" Bess asked when she saw that Nan, strangely
enough, didn't seem to be interested in her bit of information.
"Oh, Bess, I can't find it anyplace," Nan looked as though the world had
come to an end. She had all that she could do to keep from crying.
"Find what?"
"Oh, my ring. You know the one I mean, the one old Mr. Blake gave me in
Scotland last summer. He said it was a family heirloom and that I should
keep it as long as I lived and then see that it was passed on down to my
children. Now, it's gone and I'm sure I left it in this room when we
went away yesterday."
"Are you sure, Nan?" Bess looked worried too, now. The ring was a
lovely thing with the bluest of blue sapphires in an old-fashioned gold
setting. Bess had coveted it herself, and often wanted to wear it. But
she respected Nan's sentiment about the bit of jewelry enough to have
not even asked to try it on.
Now it was gone!
"When did you wear it last?"
"Bess, I had it on yesterday morning before we went on that trip by
muleback and I took it off because I was afraid I would lose it. I left
it in this box I'm sure, and it isn't here now. I've looked through it a
dozen times." As she finished, she proffered the box to Bess, who took
it, opened it up, and carefully looked through the trinkets contained
therein. The ring wasn't there.
"Have you told anybody, yet?" Bess questioned.
"No, but if it doesn't come to light pretty soon, I'm going to tell
cousin Adair. I'm almost afraid to do that, because he values the ring
almost as much as I. He saw it once, he said, when he was in Scotland,
and he was proud to think that it came to me. Now I've lost it, and I'm
sure he'll think that I've been very careless."
"It doesn't matter what he thinks," Bess said firmly. "You'd better
tell him right away. If someone has stolen it, he's the only one that
can find the culprit. Come on, let's go downstairs now. Or do you want
me to hunt first?"
"Yes, do that." Nan did dread telling Adair MacKenzie of her loss.
Bess looked thoroughly, but nowhere could she find the ring.
So together, the two girls went down the stairs, Bess this time in the
role of comforter.
They found Adair out in the gardens talking as best he could with an old
gardener who knew at least a few words of English. Adair looked up at
their entrance.
"So you like flowers, too," he greeted them. Nan nodded her head, and
then couldn't say anything for a few minutes.
"Why, what's the matter, Nancy child," Adair was all sympathy as he
noted the worried look on the girl's face. "Nothing serious, I hope."
"I'm afraid it is," Nan answered. "You know my ring--"
"The sapphire ring that you brought home from Scotland?" Adair said.
"Yes," Nan nodded her head to indicate that he was right. "It's
missing."
"What do you mean, missing?" Adair asked. "Have you lost it?"
"No, it was in my room, and it's gone now." Nan said this very
positively.
"Gone, gone where?" Adair flared up as usual.
"That's what I don't know," Nan was having a difficult time being
patient. "I wish I did."
"You think it's stolen." Adair now had the girls by the arm and was
taking them back to the hacienda.
"I don't like to say that," Nan hedged.
"If that's what happened, speak up." Adair wanted to get to the bottom
of this right away and although he was very fond of Nan he wasn't going
to spare her or her feelings any now. The ring, he felt, was a personal
loss to him too and as he went into the house, he was determined to find
it.
First he quizzed all the girls to find out, if by chance, they knew of
anything that would indicate that Nan was mistaken. They didn't. No one
had seen her wearing it after the time at which she said she had put it
away.
Then he quizzed all of the upstairs' servants. This was done with
Walker's help, since he was the only one in the crowd that knew any
Spanish at all. Again, there was no light cast on the mystery.
He called in all the rest of the house servants, with no results. Then
he blustered and fumed and threatened, but this to no avail.
Finally, with one last grand threat that he would find out who the
culprit was in spite of everybody, he sent everyone from the room.
The girls went up to their quarters together.
"Now, who do you suppose could have done anything like that?" Bess
wondered as they all sat around listlessly and hopelessly, for there was
nothing that they could do. "Do you suspect anyone, Nan?"
"No one in this whole wide world." Nan answered wholeheartedly. "The
servants since we have been here have all been just as nice as they
could be. I don't think there is a one of them that would stoop to
anything like that."
"It doesn't seem possible," soft-spoken Grace agreed, "but then someone
has taken it. We're sure of that."
"As sure as we are of anything," Nan said.
"Is it very valuable, Nan?" Amelia asked.
"Oh, I don't know that," Nan answered. "I think, however, that the value
is mostly sentimental. It was originally given to one of the Blakes as a
reward by the king. It was supposed then to have the power to bring the
king's soldiers to the help of the person wearing it, in whatever
trouble he might be.
"There is a story that once, someone who owned it committed treason and
was about to be beheaded when he brought forth the ring. It saved him,
even then, and instead of killing him they banished him to another
country for ten years. Ordinarily, it would have been death or a life
banishment, but the ring's power was mighty."
"Maybe then," Laura suggested, "if you or your cousin will offer a
reward, the ring will turn up. The person that stole it probably thought
that it was valuable."
"I thought of that," Nan answered, "but cousin Adair says 'no,' that he
will get the ring back without any such monkey business. So I guess
we'll just have to leave it up to him."