Outside in the passage he found Captain Cosdon waiting. “I say, Fortune, is she much hurt?”
“She’s taken a good hard knock. She’s not made for it. But she’ll be all right.”
“Sally! Oh damn,” said Cosdon.
“Did you catch anybody?”
“Napoo. All clear. The Colonel’s going round to see if they got away with anything. And Faulks wants you to look at his poor eye.”
“Nothing of yours gone?”
Cosdon laughed. “No. But I’m not exactly the burglar’s friend, don’t you know? My family jewels wouldn’t please the haughty crook. I say, it’s a queer stunt. Ever been in one like it?”
“I don’t think it went according to plan,” said Reggie Fortune.
He came down and found Faulks with an eye dwindling behind a bruise of many colours, arguing with an agitated butler that the house must contain arnica. Before he could give the attention which Mr. Faulks imperiously demanded, the parade voice of the Colonel rang through the house. “Fortune, come up here!”
Tom Beach stood in the study where he writes the biographies of his poultry and his iris. There also are kept the cups, medals and other silver with which shows reward their beauty. “Look at that!” he cried, with a tragic gesture. The black pedestals of the cups, the velvet cases of the medals stood empty.