“I have it!” exclaimed Jetsam suddenly. “The bed—the bed! The box was hidden under the bed, but I got it. The photograph is hidden under the bed, and I will get it.”
He hesitated. Dare he search the bed? Dare he disturb its helpless burden? He wondered. He was ready for anything. He was capable of slaughter, but he wavered and retreated before the idea of searching for the photograph in the place where the box had been.
Then he suddenly decided.
“Take firm hold of the bed itself, not the mattress,” he ordered the Soudanese, “and I will take hold on this side. Be very gentle. Do not disarrange the clothes. We will lift it over the foot of the bedstead and place it on the floor. Carefully now—carefully!”
And with the utmost delicacy the two men lifted the bed bodily and laid it very gently on the floor, and Mrs. Ilam’s gaze was directed to a new point: of the ceiling.
“That will be a change for you,” said Jetsam, with a touch of compunction in his voice. “I was obliged to do it. We’ll put you back presently.”
And he searched thoroughly the mattress and the bedstead, but there was no photograph.
He paused and wiped, his brow. The Soudanese stood at attention by the side of the bed. Jetsam looked at Jake.
“Go and fetch him down,” he said peremptorily to the Soudanese.
And Jake vanished.