“Yes, sir. I fancy some paintings you’ve ordered, sir.”
Cleigh stood perfectly still. The butler eyed him with mild perturbation. Rarely he saw bewilderment on his master’s countenance.
“Cases?”
“Yes, sir. Fourteen or fifteen of them, sir.”
Cleigh felt oddly numb. For days now he had denied to himself the reason for his agitation whenever the telephone or doorbell rang. Hope! It had not served to crush it down, to buffet it aside by ironical commentaries on the weakness of human nature; the thing was uncrushable, insistent. Packing cases!
“Denny! Jane!” he cried, and bolted for the door.
The call needed no interpretation. The two understood, and followed him downstairs 280 precipitately, with the startled Benson the tail to the kite.
“No, no!” shouted Cleigh. “The big one first!” as Dennison laid one of the smaller cases on the floor. “Benson, where the devil is the claw hammer?”
The butler foraged in the coat closet and presently emerged with a prier. Cleigh literally snatched it from the astonished butler’s grasp, pried and tore off a board. He dug away at the excelsior until he felt the cool glass under his fingers. He peered through this glass.
“Denny, it’s the rug!”