Ferguson laughed:
"If the thief had had time to try one he'd have taken the box along too."
Dixon, who treated all allusions to the subject with a tragical seriousness, said:
"I don't think he touched them, sir. The box looked just the same. Mr. Kissam was very particular to ask about it, but I told him I thought they was intact, as you might say. Though if it was the loss of one or two I couldn't be certain."
Dixon left the room and Mr. Janney looked dismally at his plate, having no spirit to fight against fate. Ferguson, with a glance at his down-drooped face, picked up the band and slipped it in his pocket.
He did not stay long after dinner. As soon as his car came he left, telling the chauffeur to hurry. At home he ran up the stairs to his room, switched on the light over the bureau and opened the box with the crystal lid. Under the studs and pins lay the band Esther had found the night he walked with her through the woods. He compared it with the one he took from his pocket and saw that they matched. The new one he threw into the fireplace, but put the other back in the box—it was something more than a souvenir. Then he sat down on the end of the sofa and thought.
Mr. Janney could not have dropped it for he had driven both to and from Council Oaks. Neither Dixon nor Isaac could have, for they had gone to the village by the main road and come back the same way at midnight. He had found it at half-past ten, untouched by the heavy shower, which had lasted from about seven till half-past eight. Therefore, whoever had thrown it there had passed that way between the time when the rain stopped and the time when Esther had found it. It had been dropped either by a man who had one of the cigars in his possession and had been on the wood path between eight-thirty and ten-thirty, or by a man who had taken a cigar from the safe between those hours.
Ferguson sat staring at the wall with his brows knit. If it had not been for the light his own gardener had seen he would have felt that he had struck the right road.
[CHAPTER XII—THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T TELL]
Mr. Larkin had lingered on at Cedar Brook. He said that he needed a holiday, the prosperity of the last year had worn him out, also the bungalow sites were many and a decision difficult.