She stood quietly and looked at the disturbed condition of things for a while. Then she said:
“I wonder if they could have gotten my jewels upstairs. Let’s see!”
She started off with the sudden recollection that these same men could have gotten more than the silverware.
Up the steps to the second floor they went, into her own apartment. There the dresser drawers were scattered about the floor, everything in the closets was down, showing that a search had been made for valuables.
Over in one corner of the room, in a place that was rather out of sight, a small safe was standing, its door wide open.
“The safe! My jewelry!”
The safe was empty. Papers and large legal envelopes lay on the floor, but otherwise the safe was absolutely, completely, hopelessly empty.
Mrs. Parsons sat stiffly down on the bed and cried, moaning the while about the loss of her jewels.
“How much was there, Mrs. Parsons?” asked Frank, after taking in the whole scene and waiting for the first shock to pass.
“Literally thousands upon thousands of dollars. There were jewels there which my grandfather and my own father and mother had left to me, and much that Mr. Parsons had bought for me at different times. Oh, there were rings and necklaces and bracelets and pins and scores, scores of small pieces of all kinds! And there were four large diamonds which were unmounted, all in a small iron box.”