“The subject,” I said, “is tabooed!”
He put his hands on my shoulders, shook me gently, told me I was a “dear scamp,” and started off. The minute after he got outside the lights went out, and I never in all my life have heard anything like the noise that followed! Evelyn and Herbert rushed out of the little drawing-room and fell over a pedestal. Amy fell over a chair that had a pile of records on it, and those tipped off and clattered as they went to pieces on the bare floor. Someone knocked over the card-table, and someone else the chair that held the tray of glasses; Aunt Penelope screamed, and Uncle Archie said things that I cannot quote, repeating them at intervals, in this manner:
“What the blank do you think you’re doing!” or, “Penelope, shut up that blank noise!” He became frightfully natural, as people do in crises, and added considerably to the confusion.
When the lights came on again the detectives looked very silly. One of them said something about hoping “it” would never get out. Then Ito was summoned and asked what had happened to the lights.
“Not can say,” he replied, with a lift of his shoulders.
Then I went to my room, looked for my bracelet, and found it was gone. Everything moved after that. Ito, Jane, and the cook were ordered to the library, where for the first and last time they sat in state; S. K. and his man were sent for, and enough moves to satisfy even Douglas Fairbanks were packed into the next few minutes.
“What was this fellow doing when you went down?” the detective asked of S. K. He looked at Debson.
“I don’t know,” S. K. answered. “I didn’t go down. I heard the noise and tried to get back.”
“How about the outside men?” the detective went on; and I then found that there had been other people on guard--these watching outside. Someone went down and returned with a crest-fallen, baffled air.
“Saw nothing,” he said, “but this fellow”--looking at Debson--“went down the stairs after the lights went out.”