Again Tucker frowned.
"I said I sent for all of the servants. Smithfield displayed, to my mind, a most suspicious ignorance and indifference to the whole subject. The housemaid was so hysterical and frightened that if I did not know a great deal of such cases, I should suspect her—"
"And was the cook frightened?" said Crane, with a flicker of a smile.
"No," Tucker explained, "she did not appear to be frightened, but then, I may tell you that I do not suspect the cook of complicity in the theft."
"The deuce you don't!" said Crane. He found himself suddenly annoyed without reason, that Tucker should have been interviewing and questioning his servants during his absence; stirring up trouble, he said to himself, and perhaps hurting the feelings of a perfectly good cook. Suppose she had decided to leave as a result of these activities of Solon's! He found he had not been listening to the account his friend was giving of the conversation, until he heard him say:
"It seems Jane-Ellen had never been in this room before; she was very much interested in everything. I saw her looking at that splendid portrait of General Revelly, and she asked—in fact, she made me give her quite a little account of his life—"
"A little lecture on the Civil War, eh?" said Crane.
His tone was not wholly friendly and Tucker did not find it so. He colored.
"Really, Burton," he said, coldly, "in case of crime, or of theft, a man's lawyer is usually supposed to know what it is best to do."
"Possibly, but I see no point in having dragged the cook into it."