So there they stood—three men, none of whom had any idea what had happened, and each well convinced that he was the suspect who must fight it out sooner or later: each at the same time firmly believing that one of the other two was the culprit. In Marjorie's pure mind there spread a growing certitude that they were all of them guilty, all of them, and that each of them had the emerald in his pocket—yet were there not three emeralds but one emerald. At least, that was how it felt. But within the soul of the Home Secretary—if I might so call it—there was a strong sense of botheration and of wishing the beastly thing had never happened.
Under the keen inward light of Victoria Mosel's intelligence, standing apart, a fascinating problem was being discussed. She was delighted. It would occupy her for days. It was just what she liked.
In all that circle of heads, showing in different degrees—Victoria's least of all—the mood of the mind through some transfiguration of the face, each silent for the moment, only one head stood frankly stamped with a fierce joy. It was the head of the polar bear.
If he could have spoken he might—or he might not—have told them. It might have amused him more to keep them in suspense. His great red grinning open mouth and shining teeth were full of joy. His fierce glass eyes glared upon them mischievously. It was almost worth while being shot and skinned for such a revenge as this! He knew where the emerald was.... It was in his right ear.
They had taken him and shaken him with great indignity, but they had foolishly taken him up by the hind legs. One should never take a polar bear up in that way, especially when it is a bear who has been a prince in his own country of keen wind, low shining sun, and little dancing seas against the ice. They had shaken him, but they had shaken—oh, shame!—upside down, and the more they had shaken him, the more firmly had they wedged the emerald in his right ear, where it so snugly lay.
He could have told them, and I have hastened to tell you. Then where, you ask me, does the detective fun come in?
You shall see!
* * * * * * *
Far in the Eastern Wing where, mured in stone
Arrived at by a passage cold that ran
Along the North o' the House, and barred with iron
As to its windows: also by a door
Which leads from the considerable room
Wherein are great receptions held at Paulings
[An Antrum gaunt, abandoned, having only
Upon its walls the Oils of dead de Bohuns
(Pronounced Deboons) and sundry dusty sofas:
The Room grandiloquently named the Ballroom],
There stand the Servants' Quarters. It is there,
That, ruled by their dread Queen, the Housekeeper,
And by her Coadjutor King, the Butler,
The serfs Boonesque repose. The Cook, the Chauffeur,
The Kitchen Maids, the Footmen, and the Boy:
And Lord! how many others! These that night—
That winter night of doom—held high discourse,
Upon the EMERALD. Samuel had heard
(While bearing in the tray of drinks, himself
Arrayed in livery) how its disappearance
Had flummoxed all the Toffs. "You bet your breeches!"
Said he, to either sex, indifferent
And indiscriminate. "You bet your breeches!
Whoever's pinched it's got to cough it up!
The Boss, he ain't Home Secretary, not
For nothing!" and with that his tongue was still.
Then spake young Gwendoline, the Tweeny Maid,
"I pity Him or 'Er as 'as it!" Words
Which, when she had them spoken, froze their souls—
Nor none more starkly than the Second Housemaid's,
Unless it were the Boy's—and so to Bed.