“It ain’t for me to be telling tales, Mr. Perkins,” she said. “All cooks as I’ve lived with is queer like, and I didn’t think any more about it.”
“All right,” said Thaddeus. “You may go. Only, Mary, don’t speak of the plates again to Margaret. Say as little to her as you can, in fact, about anything. If you notice anything queer, report to me at once.”
The waitress left the room, and Thaddeus turned to his desk. It was plain from his appearance that light was beginning to be let in on places that up to this point had been more or less dark to him, although, as a matter of fact, he could not in any way account for the mystery of the vanished plates any more than he could for the sweeping of the library in the still hours of the night. He had an idea as to who the culprit was, and what that idea was is plain enough to us, but the question of motive was the great puzzle to him now.
“If she did take them, why should she?” was the problem he was trying to solve; and then, as if his trials were not already great enough for one day, Bessie broke excitedly into the room.
“Thaddeus!” she cried, “there’s something wrong in this house; my best table-cloth is missing, our dessert-spoons are gone, and what do you suppose has happened?”
“I don’t know—a volcano has developed in the cellar, I suppose,” said Thaddeus.
“No,” said Bessie, “it isn’t as bad as that; but the ice-cream man has telephoned up to know whether we want the cream for dinner or for eleven o’clock, according to the order as he understands it.”
“Well,” said Thaddeus, “I don’t see anything very unusual in an ice-cream man’s needing to be told three or four times what is expected of him.”
“But I never ordered any cream at all,” said Bessie.
“Ah,” said Thaddeus, “that’s different. Did you tell Partinelli so?”