“Hold still there, can’t you? I want to try it another way. Didn’t I see one of those sleeveless jacket affairs in there?”
Jane rummaged and brought to light a crimson silk Turkish jacket embroidered in gold thread. She noticed that it, too, seemed perfectly fresh.
“Sherm, I do wonder how Captain Clarke happened to buy all these woman’s things. Do you suppose he bought them for his wife and she was dead when he got home with them?”
“I wonder. Perhaps we oughtn’t to be handling them. See all those queer beads, and there’s a bracelet! Isn’t it a beauty? See, it is like silver lace. I guess those blue stones must be turquoises.”
“Isn’t it dainty? That must be the filigree work we read about.”
360Sherm was staring thoughtfully at the contents of the drawer. “One thing sure,” he muttered, “he must have thought a heap of her.”
Chicken Little had continued exploring. “Here’s a photograph and two locks of hair in a little frame. Oh, Sherm, it’s her! Yes, it must be, this is the same baby. I wonder why he doesn’t have this on his bureau, too.”
Sherm took the picture and stared at it so long that Jane grew impatient.
“What is it, Sherm? What’s the matter?”
Sherm started, passing his hand over his forehead and eyes as if he were dazed.