The next morning Mr. Janney had to read the papers to himself for Miss
Maitland went to town on the 8:45. He sat on the balcony and missed her,
for the Chicago murder had developed several new features and he had no
one to talk them over with. Suzanne, who never came down to breakfast,
appeared at twelve and said she was going to the Fairfax’s to lunch with
bridge afterward. Though she was not yet aware of Mrs. Janney’s
intention to once more come to her aid, her gloom and ill-humor had
disappeared. She looked bright, almost buoyant, her eyes showing a
lively gleam, her lips parting in ready smiles. She was going to the
beach before lunch, and left with a large knitting bag slung from her
arm, and a parasol tilted over her shoulder. It was not until she was
half way across the lawn that old Sam remembered her nocturnal
appearance which he had intended asking her about.
She was hardly out of sight when Bébita and Annie came into view on the
drive, returning from the morning bath. Bébita had a trouble and raced
up the steps to tell him—she had lost her torch. She was quite
disconsolate over it; Annie had said they’d surely find it, but it
wasn’t anywhere, and she _knew_ she’d left it on the nursery table when
she went to bed. In the light of subsequent events Mr. Janney thought
his answer to the child had been dictated by Providence. Why he didn’t
say, "Your mother knows; she had it last night," he never could explain;
nor what prompted the words, "Ask your mother; she’s probably seen it
somewhere." Bébita accepted the suggestion with some hope and then,
hearing that her mother would not be home until the afternoon, fell into
momentary dejection.
Mrs. Janney was to take her accustomed drive at four and her husband
said he would go with her. Some time before the hour he appeared on the
balcony, cool and calm, his poise restored after the trials of the
previous day and the disturbed night, and sat down to wait. Inside the
house his wife was busy. Several important papers had come on the
morning mail and these, with the opals, she decided to put in the safe
before starting. After they were stored in their shelves and the opals
back in their box she could not resist a look at her emeralds, of all
her material possessions the dearest. She lifted the purple velvet case
and opened it—the emeralds were not there.
She stood motionless, experiencing an inner sense of upheaval, her heart
leaping and then sinking down, her body shaken by a tremor such as the
earth feels when rocked by a seismic throe. She tried to hold herself
steady and opened the other cases—the two pearl necklaces, the sapphire
rivière, the diamond and ruby tiara. As each revealed its emptiness her
hands began to tremble until, when she reached the white suède box of
the black pearl pendant, they shook so she could hardly find the clasp.
Everything was gone—a clean sweep had been made of the Janney jewels.
Moving with a firm step, she went to the balcony. In the doorway she
came to a halt and said quietly to her husband:
"Sam, my jewels have been stolen."
Mr. Janney squared round, stared at her, and ejaculated in feeble
denial:
"Oh _no_!"
"Oh yes," she answered with the same note of grim control, "Come and
see."
When he saw, his old veined hands shaking as they dropped the rifled
cases, he turned and blankly faced his wife who was watching him with a
level scrutiny.
"Mary!" was all he could falter. "Mary, my _dear_!"
"Last night," she nodded, "when we were out. The place was almost empty.
I’ll call the servants."
She went to the foot of the stairs and called Elspeth, old Sam,
bewildered by this sudden catastrophe, emerging from the safe, as pale
and shaken as if he was the burglar.
"Last night, of course last night," he murmured, trying to think. "They
were here at eight. I saw them, we saw them, anybody could have seen
them."
Elspeth appeared on the stairs and came running down, Mrs. Janney’s
orders delivered like pistol shots upon her advance:
"I’ve been robbed. The safe’s been opened and all the jewels are gone.
Go and call the servants, every one of them. Tell them to come here at
once."
Elspeth knew enough to make no reply, and, with a terrified face,
scudded past her mistress to the kitchen. Mrs. Janney, her attention
attracted by sounds of distracted amazement from her husband, mobilized
him:
"Go and get Miss Maitland. We’ll have to send for detectives. She can do
it—she doesn’t lose her head."
Mr. Janney, too stunned to be anything but meekly obedient, trotted off
down the hall to Miss Maitland’s study, then stopped and came back:
"She’s in town; she hasn’t got back yet."
"Tch!" Mrs. Janney gave a sound of exasperation. "I’d forgotten it. How
maddening! You’ll have to do it. Go in there to the ’phone"—she
indicated the telephone closet at the end of the hall. "Call up the
Kissam Agency—that’s the best. We had them when the bell boy at Atlantic
City stole my sables. Get Kissam himself and tell him what’s happened
and to take hold at once—to come now, not to waste a minute. And don’t
you either—hurry!—"
Mr. Janney hasted away and shut himself in the telephone closet, as the
servants, marshaled by Dixon and Elspeth, entered in a scared group.
They had been taking tea in their own dining room when Elspeth burst in
with the direful news. Eight of them were old employees—had been years
in Mrs. Janney’s service. Hannah, the cook, had been with her nearly as
long as Dixon; Isaac, the footman, was her nephew. Dixon’s large,
heavy-jowled face was stamped with aghast concern; the kitchen maid was
in tears.
Mrs. Janney addressed them like what she was—a general in command of her
forces:
"My jewels have been stolen. Some time last night the safe was opened
and they were taken. It is my order that every one of you stay in the
house, not holding communication with any one outside, until the police
have been here and made a thorough investigation. Your rooms and your
trunks will have to be searched and I expect you to submit to it
willingly with no grumbling."
Dixon answered her:
"It’s what we’d expect, Madam. Me and Isaac both know the combination
and we’d want to have our own characters cleared as much as we’d want
you to get back your valuables."
Hannah spoke:
"We’d welcome it, Mrs. Janney. There’s none of us wants any suspicion
restin’ on ’em."
Delia, the housemaid with the inflamed eye, took it up. She was a
newcomer in the household, and in her fright her brogue acquired an
unaccustomed richness:
"God knows I was in my room at nine, and not a move out of me till sivin
the nixt mornin’ and that’s to-day."
Mr. Janney, issuing from the telephone closet, here interrupted them. He
addressed his wife:
"It’s all right. I got Kissam himself. He’ll be here on the 5:30."
She answered with a nod and was turning for further instructions to
Dixon when Suzanne entered from the balcony. Up to that moment Mr.
Janney had forgotten all about his nocturnal vision; now it came back
upon him with a shattering impact.
He felt his knees turn to water and his heart sink down to inner,
unplumbed depths in his anatomy. He grasped at the back of a chair and
for once his manners deserted him, for he dropped into it though his
wife was standing.
"What’s all this?" said Suzanne, coming to a halt, her glance shifting
from her mother to the group of solemn servants. She looked very pretty,
her face flushed, the blue tint of her linen dress harmonizing
graciously with her pink cheeks and corn-colored hair.
Mrs. Janney explained. As she did so old Sam, his face as gray as his
beard, watched his stepdaughter with a furtive eye. Suzanne appeared
amazed, quite horror-stricken. She too sank into a chair, and listened,
open-mouthed, her feet thrust out before her, the high heels planted on
the rug.
"Why, what an awful thing!" was her final comment. Then as if seized by
a sudden thought she turned on Dixon.
"Were all the windows and doors locked last night?"
"All on the lower floor, Mrs. Price. Me and Isaac went round them before
we started for the village, and there’s not a night—"
Suzanne cut him off brusquely:
"Then how could any one get in to do it?"
There was a curious, surging movement among the servants, a mutter of
protest. Mr. Janney intervened:
"You’d better let matters alone, Suzanne. Detectives are coming and
they’ll inquire into all that sort of thing."
"I suppose I can ask a question if I like," she said pertly, then
suddenly; looking about the hall, "Where’s Miss Maitland?"
"In town," said her mother.
"Oh—she went in, did she? I thought her day off was Thursday."
"She asked for to-day—what _does_ it matter?" Mrs. Janney was irritated
by these irrelevancies and turned to the servants: "Now I’ve instructed
you and for your own sakes obey what I’ve said. Not a man or woman
leaves the house till after the police have made their search. That
applies to the garage men and the gardeners. Dixon, you can tell them—"
she stopped, the crunch of motor wheels on the gravel had caught her
ear. "There’s some one coming. I’m not at home, Dixon."
The servants huddled out to their own domain and Dixon, with a
resumption of his best hall-door manner, went to ward off the visitor.
But it was only Miss Maitland returning from town. She had several small
packages in her hands and looked pale and tired.
The news that greeted her—Mrs. Janney was her informant—left her as
blankly amazed as it had the others. She was shocked, asked questions,
could hardly believe it. Old Sam found the opportunity a good one to
study Suzanne, who appeared extremely interested in the Secretary’s
remarks. Once, when Miss Maitland spoke of keeping some of her books and
the house-money in the safe, he saw his stepdaughter’s eyelids flutter
and droop over the bird-bright fixity of her glance.
It was at this stage that Bébita ran into the hall and made a joyous
rush for her mother:
"Oh, Mummy, I’ve _waited_ and _waited_ for you,"—she flung herself
against Suzanne’s side in soft collision. "I’ve lost my torch and I’ve
asked everybody and nobody’s seen it. Do _you_ know where it is?"
Suzanne arched her eyebrows in playful surprise, then putting a finger
under the rounded chin, lifted her daughter’s face and kissed her,
softly, sweetly, tenderly.
"Darling, I’m so sorry, but I haven’t seen it anywhere. If you can’t
find it I’ll buy you another."