And still none of the others spoke, but Mr. Oliver leaned back in his chair, and he clapped his hands softly as though he was at a play. 'Bravo!' he says, 'bravo!'
And the others looked at him as if they thought he had gone out of his mind.
'It's a very pretty drama, very nicely played, but now it's time to put an end to it. Do you want to see the villain?' he says to master, and master never answering him, only staring, he turned quite sharp and sudden and pointed to John as he stood near the door with his black eyes burning like coals. 'You took it,' said Mr. Oliver, 'and you put it in Mary's box. Oh! you needn't start. I know it's true without that.'
John had started, but he pulled himself together in a minute. The man had pluck, I will say that. He spoke quite firm and respectful. 'And why should I have done that, sir, if you please, when all the house knows that I have been courting Mary fair and honest this two year?'
Mr. Oliver tapped his snuff-box and grinned all over his big smooth face. 'When you do your courting fair and honest, young man, you should be careful not to do it in the library with the window open. I was in the verandah, and I heard you threaten that she should never marry James, and that she should marry you; and that you would be revenged on her for her bad taste in preferring him to you.'
John drew a deep breath. 'That's nothing, sir, is it?' he says to master. 'Every one in the house knows I have been sorry for a hasty word, and have been the best friends with both of them for these three weeks.'
Mr. Oliver got up and put his snuff-box on the table, and his hands in his trouser pockets. 'You can send for the police, William,' he said to master, 'because as a matter of fact, I saw the black-whiskered gentleman with the necklace in his hand. I did get home late to-night, but not so late as you thought, and I came in through the open door and was up in my dressing-room when that scoundrel sneaked into my wife's room and took the necklace to ruin an innocent girl with. What a thorough scoundrel you are, though, aren't you?' he said to John.
Then John, he shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, 'It's all up now,' and he said to Mr. Oliver very politely, 'You are always fond of poking your nose into other people's business, sir, and I daresay you'd like to know why I did it. Oh yes. You know everything, you do,' says John, growing very white, and speaking angry and quick, 'with your writing, and your snuff, and your gossiping with the servants, which no gentleman would do, and your nasty, sneaking, Jaeger-felt boots, and your silly old tub of a wife. I knew that smooth-spoken man of yours would believe anything against her, and I knew he would never marry her after a set-out like this, and I knew I should get her when she found I stuck to her through it all, as I should have done, and as I would have done too, if she had taken fifty diamond necklaces.'
'Send for the police,' said master, but nobody moved. For Mrs. Oliver, who had been crying like a waterworks ever since we came down into the library, said quite sudden, 'O Dick dear! let him go. Don't prosecute him. See, he's lost everything, and he's lost her, and he must have been mad with love for her or he wouldn't have done such a thing.'
Now, wasn't that a true lady to speak up like that for him after what he'd said of her? Mr. Oliver looked surprised at her speaking up like that, her that hardly ever said a word except 'Yes, Dick dear,' and 'No, Dick dear,' and then he shrugs his shoulders and he says, 'You are right, my dear, he's punished enough.'