“Did you hear it?” she whispered. And then she went over to Evelyn and said: “Drink this immediately! Immediately!” and gave her the ice-pick. But no one laughed.
Then there was an awful noise, and everyone screamed, but the voice of Uncle Archie was heard to say something that I cannot quote, and everyone was reassured. He had only run into an onyx pedestal which has Leonardo da Vinci’s or Raphael’s (I’ve forgotten which) flying Mercury on it. He had encountered this in the dark.
In a moment he stood in the doorway, rubbing his shins and muttering.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“If you will tell me!” rattled Aunt Penelope, so fast you could hardly hear her words, “I shall be grateful. . . . We must all be calm! (Amy, stop biting your nails! You drive me crazy!) I was in the pantry when it began--in Natalie’s room, I think. . . . Evelyn, put your foot back in the tub; the water is dripping all over the rug. . . . And I heard it--and----”
“Hugh!” grunted Uncle Archie, and went toward my room. In it, we heard him turn on the lights and put up the window which opened on the small iron balcony, from which one can lower a fire-escape if necessary. Trembling, we followed him. Evelyn didn’t even stop to wipe her feet. . . . And we saw that the window-sill was splintered and that there were deep dents in it, as if someone had pounded in a huge nail and then pulled it out.
“More thieving,” said aunt. “We must be calm. . . . I am going to faint, I know I am. Evelyn, get your bedroom slippers. There seems to be no safety, no calm. But if you will just try to hold on to control----” And then somehow Amy got tangled up in the telephone cord and pulled the telephone from the table, and the table over with it, and aunt simply screamed.
Uncle Archie was tired. He said he was going to live at the club if things didn’t change, and the frank way he talked diverted everyone for a few moments. Then, after a half-hour more everyone went to bed, but the lights were all left on and no one slept much. . . . Before I went to bed, I looked for the bracelet, which I was surprised to find undisturbed.
We had a very late breakfast the next morning, and we all had it together and really had a good time. Even Evelyn was pleasant, and it was the last time for ages that she was nice to me. . . . We had the Sunday papers to look at (Uncle Archie gets a great many), and we all had a section and commented on the pictures, and that made talk. . . . Evelyn became greatly interested in a group of pictures of some important Spanish people who had been visiting New York on some mission. Someone had taken them to see the Jumel Mansion, because of course it is a great show place; and outside of this a reporter had snapped them. I felt sure that Señorita Marguerita Angela Blanco y Chiappi was the little Spanish woman who had so greatly admired the Jumel bracelet and who had so extravagantly voiced her admiration in her liquid tongue. By her was a tall, very handsome man, who looked down, and he was a Cuban sugar king, it said under the picture. His name was Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez. Evelyn and I decided he admired Marguerita a great deal. His look at her made the picture very interesting. Then of course there were two or three others, standing on the steps, and one walking toward the camera with one foot in mid-air, and a swinging arm blurred. That has to happen in every group photograph.
We fooled around this way until about a quarter of twelve, and then, because the day was lovely, Amy and I decided to take a walk, and Evelyn, who hadn’t an engagement before three, said she’d go with us. So we all put on our outdoor things and started out. . . . Evelyn was just as pleasant as she could be, and we had a lovely time! And I can’t think why she isn’t that way always, since everyone likes her so much when she is kind. . . . But once in a while she was quiet and seemed absent-minded, and during one of these attacks Amy whispered: “We’ll have to fix it. She thinks it was HIM.”