Vivian's Lesson

by Elizabeth W. Grierson

‘Yes, to be sure,’ replied Mr Osbourne, who had not noticed that there were any of them downstairs until Ralph’s noisy interruption.—‘Go and have your breakfast at once, boys.—Mary, will you go with them and see to it? We will call you if we want you. And afterwards, see that they all go up to the playroom, or somewhere where they will be out of the way.’

‘But, father,’ began Ralph lingering behind the others, not choosing to consider himself included in an order to the children, ‘do you hear what I am saying? I found out that the summer-house windows are broken, and surely that is a clue.’

‘Hold your tongue, Ralph, and do as you are bid,’ said his father sharply. ‘We found all that out long before you were up; so go along and have your breakfast with the others, and don’t let me find you bothering about down here again.’

Ralph, who was afraid of his father, dared not argue the point further, but he went out of the hall with a frown on his face. He had a great idea of his own importance, and he did not care to be snubbed in this way before the servants, and told to stay out of the way as if he were six years old. There was no help for it, however, so he followed the others to the servants’ hall with the best grace he could, and found that Mary had already poured out the tea and was good-naturedly answering the many questions which Ronald and Vivian were showering upon her.

‘’Tis clear that the thieves got in by the conservatory, Master Vivian,’ she was saying as Ralph entered and sat down sullenly in the place which had been left vacant for him, ‘for they have cut a great circle clean out of the glass just behind the stables; and then I suppose one of them put in his hand and unlocked the door, for Hunter found it open this morning, and he locked it himself last night. They seem to have carried out the silver that way too, and a nice lot of it they have got, more’s the pity, for Mason picked up one of the best silver forks just a stone’s-throw down the drive. None of us maids have been allowed to go out; but we heard the policeman say as how a cart must have waited on the road just outside the gate—the wheel-marks can be seen quite plainly—and they must have put it all into that, and carted it away. Like as not it is all melted down by this time. I’ve heard people say that these thieves are such sharp ones they melt all their things at once.’

‘What for?’ asked Claude, pausing with his mug of milk half-way to his mouth. ‘It would spoil all the things if they were melted.’

‘Not to let people know whose things they were,’ explained Ronald with a smile, taking up a teaspoon. ‘You see, Claude, here is W. O. on the end of this, or ought to be, though I can’t see it. Well, if the police found a teaspoon with W. O. on it in any one’s house—any one whom he thought was likely to steal, I mean—he would know that the teaspoons were Uncle Walter’s, and that the people in the house had stolen them.’

‘You won’t find any letters on the end of any of these teaspoons, worse luck! Master Ronald,’ said Mary. ‘These are the kitchen spoons, the only ones that are left. The rogues knew what to take and what to leave, and they did not touch any of the kitchen things.’

‘Where’s my christening-mug?’ asked Claude suddenly, noticing for the first time that he was using a plain white china cup instead of the solid silver mug which his godfather, a rich old gentleman in India, had given him.

‘Melted,’ said Ralph maliciously, while Mary murmured, ‘I’m afraid it has gone with the rest of the things, Master Claude. You know it always stood on the sideboard in the dining-room, along with the really good silver.’