‘But my name was on it,’ said Claude, the tears rising in his round blue eyes at the thought of losing his mug, which he had had all his life, and of which he was very proud. ‘My whole name is on it, “Claude Alexander Osbourne,” and my date.’
‘All the more reason why they should melt it,’ went on Ralph, who was in the mood to tease his little brother, and with whom the Indian mug had always been rather a sore subject. He was the eldest, and he had always felt that the mug, and the rich godfather too, should have belonged to him, instead of to Claude; for his godfathers, two old clergymen, had only given him a Bible and a prayer-book, which in his mind were very mean gifts compared to Isobel’s case containing a silver knife and fork and spoon, which she had got at her christening, and Claude’s silver mug.
‘Hush, Master Claude,’ said Mary, as she saw the big tears begin to roll down the little boy’s face at his brother’s unkind words; ‘don’t vex your heart about the mug. They say that the man from Scotland Yard can find out anything, and he will be sure to catch the thieves long before they have had time to melt all the things. And your mug was so solid it would take a long time to melt.
‘As for you, Master Ralph,’ she went on, ‘if I were a big boy like you I would be ashamed to tease a little one and make him cry, when there is so much trouble and worry in the house. Dear, dear! there, you have set him off, and you know how long it will be before he stops; and what will your father say, with Miss Isobel so ill?’
‘How is Isobel?’ asked Ronald, suddenly remembering what Anne had said when she called him, and noticing almost for the first time that neither she nor Aunt Dora had ever appeared.
‘She isn’t at all well,’ said Mary gravely. ‘The mistress has been up since five o’clock with her. ’Twas then the robbery was found out. Mistress went down into the dining-room to get some soda-water—Miss Isobel was sick—and she found it all in an upturn.—Oh, do be quiet, Master Claude,’ she added in a worried tone. ‘The doctor said that Miss Isobel was to be kept quiet, and here you are roaring like a bull of Bashan.—It’s all your fault, that’s what it is, Master Ralph. And, oh dear, there’s the master calling!’
Just then Uncle Walter’s voice sounded sharply from the hall.
‘Who is that making such a noise?’ he asked. ‘Be quiet, Claude, at once, do you hear?—Mary, surely you can keep him quiet. We cannot have a noise like that in the house to-day.’
But the sharp note in his father’s voice only made matters worse, and in spite of Mary’s threats and promises and offers of sundry lumps of toffee which she would get out of her box when the policemen would let her go upstairs, if he would only be quiet, Claude went on crying till he bade fair to go into one of the screaming-fits for which he had been noted as a baby, but which he seemed quite to have outgrown.
As a matter of fact, the confusion and mystery which had suddenly overtaken his usually orderly home had quite upset the little fellow’s nerves, and it needed very little to make him lose his self-control. Poor Mary was in despair; but Ronald, who had a wonderful way with children, came to the rescue. His own little sister Dorothy was a very excitable child, and Mrs Armitage often said that she did not know what she would have done without her eldest son, who could soothe and quiet the little girl when every one else was helpless.