"True, but if they offered to submit to this themselves?"
"They? How?"
"If you, the son of the house,—their host we may say,—should call them together and, for your own satisfaction, empty out your pockets in the sight of every one, don't you think that all the men, and possibly all the women too—" (here I let my voice fall suggestively) "would be glad to follow suit? It could be done in apparent joke."
He shook his head with a straight-forward air, which raised him high in my estimation.
"That would call for little but effrontery on my part," said he; "but think what it would demand from these boys who came here for the sole purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention the ladies."
"Yet one of the latter—"
"I know," he quietly acknowledged, growing restless for the first time.
I withdrew my eyes from his face. I had learned what I wished. Personally he did not shrink from search, therefore the jewel was not in his pockets. This left but two persons for suspicion to halt between. But I disclosed nothing of my thoughts; I merely asked pardon for a suggestion that, while pardonable in a man accustomed to handle crime with ungloved hands, could not fail to prove offensive to a gentleman like himself.
"We must move by means less open," I concluded. "It adds to our difficulties, but that can not be helped. I should now like a glimpse of Mr. Deane."
"Do you not wish to speak to him?"