In the meantime, Mrs. St. Clair, left to the quiet seclusion of her own home, became forthwith a very determined and resolute character.
First she summoned to her aid the old colored butler, who had been with her many years, and together they searched every part of the house where she had been the night before. They went over the attic thoroughly and satisfied themselves that the lost pearl necklace could not have been dropped there. They hunted through the downstairs rooms, shook out the sofa cushions, looked under the rugs and behind curtains. There was not a crack nor cranny of the rooms she had lately frequented that Mrs. St. Clair and old Randolph did not scour.
Like many another easy-going, amiable soul, Mrs. St. Clair, when roused to action, was capable of the most surprising, almost fierce determination, and when Fannie Alta returned, pleading the excuse of a headache, she hardly recognized in the white intense face, the rosy, dimpled countenance of the widow.
Fannie retired to her room, but when Mrs. St. Clair went to the telephone in the upper hall, she crept to the door, opened it a crack, and overheard snatches of this conversation:
“Do you happen to have a good detective? That’s fortunate. The famous Mr. Bangs home on his vacation? Has a motor cycle? Very well, he ought to get here in an hour. Tell him to hurry. Thank you. Good-by.”
A tray of luncheon was brought to Fannie, but she ate very little. She sat in her room thinking hard. Then, with a sudden resolution, she jumped up and began to move about. First she packed her valise. Then, tying her handkerchief about her head, she put on a very woe-begone expression and left the room. Mrs. St. Clair was in the living room, a maid told her, and Fannie found her pacing nervously up and down the bright, chintz-hung place.
“I am afraid you are not feeling so well, Miss Alta,” the widow said politely, but with just a shade of coldness in her tone.
“I am much worse,” answered Fannie. “I feel quite ill. I wish to return to my mamma. May I be driven home?”
Mrs. St. Clair hesitated and a very strange expression came into her face.
“You may go in a few hours, Miss Alta. There is no one to take you just now. Randolph is needed here and the other men are off working on the place. Perhaps you had better lie down in your room until I can arrange to send you back. Did you try the aromatic spirits of ammonia?”