I did not go to sleep at once. I lay on the chintz-covered
divan in Bella’s dressing room and stared at
the picture of her with the violets underneath.
I couldn’t see what there was about Bella to
inspire such undying devotion, but I had to admit that
she had looked handsome that night, and that the Harbison
man had certainly been impressed.
At seven o’clock Jimmy Wilson pounded at my
door, and I could have choked him joyfully. I
dragged myself to the door and opened it, and then
I heard excited voices. Everybody seemed to be
up but Aunt Selina, and they were all talking at once.
Anne Brown was in the corner of the group, waving
her hands, while Dallas was trying to hook the back
of her gown with one hand and hold a blanket around
himself with the other. No one was dressed except
Anne, and she had been up for an hour, looking in
shoes and under the corners of rugs and around the
bed clothing for her jeweled collar. When she
saw me she began all over again.
“I had it on when I went into my room,”
she declared, “and I put it on the dressing
table when I undressed. I meant to put it under
my pillow, but I forgot. And I didn’t sleep
well; I was awake half the night. Wasn’t
I, Dal? Then, when the clock downstairs in the
hall was chiming five, something roused me, and I
sat up in bed. It was still dark, but I pinched
Dal and said there was somebody in the room.
You remember that, don’t you, Dal?”
“I thought you had nightmare,” he said
sheepishly.
“I lay still for ages, it seemed to me, and
then—the door into the hall closed.
I heard the catch click. I turned on the light
over the bed then, and the room was empty. I thought
of my collar, and although it seemed ridiculous, with
the house sealed as it is, and all of us friends for
years—well, I got up and looked, and it
was gone!”
No one spoke for an instant. It was a queer
situation, for the collar was gone; Anne’s red
eyes showed it was true. And there we stood,
every one of us a miserable picture of guilt, and tried
to look innocent and debonair and unsuspicious.
Finally Jim held up his hand and signified that he
wanted to say something.
“It’s like this,” he said, “until
this thing is cleared up, for Heaven’s sake,
let’s try to be sane! If every fellow thinks
the other fellow did it, this house will be a nice
little hell to live in. And if anybody”—here
he glared around—“if anybody has
got funny and is hiding those jewels, I want to say
that he’d better speak up now. Later, it
won’t be so easy for him. It’s a
mighty poor joke.”
But nobody spoke.
It was Betty Mercer who said she was hungry, and got
us switched from the delicate subject of which was
the thief to the quite as pressing subject of which
was to be cook. Aunt Selina had slept quietly
through the whole thing—we learned afterward
that she customarily slept on her left side, which
was on her good ear. We gathered in the Dallas
Browns’ room, and Jimmy proposed a plan.
