“Chief, you have established that some one in this house is a thief. That thief, presumably, had to do his work mighty fast and presumably he had no time to hide all his loot in a place safe enough to elude a police hunt. He had only a minute or two to do it in. Therefore, the chances are that the bulkier or less easily hidden bits of plunder are still concealed on him. Perhaps all of it. Very good. It would be that man’s natural impulse to resist search. Practically every one else here has volunteered to submit to search. One man only has refused. By an odd coincidence, that happens also to be the one man who was not robbed. Figure it out for yourself. It—”
“Oz Creede!” Miss Gregg declaimed, as the rest still sat dazed into momentary stillness at the unbelievable attack. “If you had the remotest idea how utterly vile and worthless you are, you’d bite yourself and die of hydrophobia.... I just thought I’d mention it,” she added, apologetically, to Doris.
But Doris did not hear. The girl’s glowing eyes were on Thaxton Vail, who had sprung to his feet and was advancing on his accuser.
“Oz,” said Vail, his voice muffled and not quite firm, “I promised your brother I’d forget I had any grievance against you. May I trouble you to leave here before I forget that promise?— As quickly as you can, please.”
“Hold on there!” blustered Joshua Q., billowing forward. “Hold on there! There seems to me to be a lot in what this young feller says. He talks sense, Mr. Vail. And I believe he’s right. This is no time to go trying to carry things highhanded. Chief, I demand—”
He broke off short in the rolling utterances, his mouth ajar, his little eyes bulging. Osmun Creede and Vail stood confronting each other. With a gesture as swift as the strike of a rattlesnake Osmun thrust out his right hand toward the left waistcoat pocket of Vail’s dinner clothes.
Now he withdrew the questing hand and was holding it open for all to gaze on. In its palm glowed dully a huge old hunting-case watch.
“I caught sight of a bulge in that pocket,” he rasped. “So I took a chance at a search on my own account. Now I’ll go. Not because you’ve ordered me out, Vail, but because I don’t care to stay under the same roof with a man who robs his guests. Good-by.”
His words went unheard in the sudden babble of voices and the pressing forward of the rest. Every one was talking at once. The chief peered, hypnotized, at the watch Osmun had laid on the table in front of him. Vail, after a moment of stark blankness, lurched furiously at Creede, mouthing something which nobody could hear in the uproar.
The constable threw himself between Vail and the sardonically smiling man. Before Thaxton could break free or recover his self-control Creede had left the room. But, in the hallway outside, during the moment’s hush which followed the clamor, all could hear his strident voice as he shouted up the stairs: