"I tell you, Kerfoot, I can't do it," he objected, even as his wife rang the bell. "You've got to show me!"
"Please be still, Jim," she said, as Wilkins stepped into the room. She turned an impassive face to the waiting servant. "Will you ask Felice to come here."
None of us spoke until Felice entered the room. Wilkins, I noticed, followed her in, but passed across the room's full length and went out by the door in the rear.
"Felice," said the woman beside me, very calmly and coolly, "I want you to take this box back to the safe."
"Yes, madam."
"Then go to the telephone in the study and ring up police headquarters. Tell them who you are. Then explain that I want them to send an officer here, at once."
"Yes, madam," answered the attentive-faced maid.
"Felice, you had better ask them to send two men, two—"
"Two plain-clothes men," I prompted.
"Yes, two plain-clothes men. And explain to them that they are to arrest the man-servant who opens the door for them—at once, and without any fuss. Is that quite clear?"