But Eleanor possessed no means of telling one package from another; they were all so similar to one another in everything save size, in which they differed only slightly, hardly materially.
None the less, having dared so much, she wasn’t of the stuff to give up the attempt without at least a little effort to find what she sought. And impulsively she selected the first package that fell under her hand, with nervous fingers unwrapped it and—found herself admiring an extremely handsome diamond brooch.
As if it had been a handful of pebbles, she cast it from her to blaze despised upon the mean plank flooring, and selected another package.
It contained rings—three gold rings set with solitaire diamonds. They shared the fate of the brooch.
The next packet held a watch. This, too, she dropped contemptuously, hurrying on.
She had no method, other than to take the uppermost packets from each pigeonhole, on the theory that the necklace had been one of the last articles entrusted to the safe. And that there was some sense in this method was demonstrated when she opened the ninth package—or possibly the twelfth: she was too busy and excited to keep any sort of count.
This last packet, however, revealed the Cadogan collar.
With a little, thankful sigh the girl secreted the thing in the bosom of her dress and prepared to rise.
Behind her a board creaked and the doorlatch clicked. Still sitting—heart in her mouth, breath at a standstill, blood chilling with fright—she turned in time to see the door open and the face and figure of her father as he stood looking down at her, his eyes blinking in the glare of light that painted a gleam along the polished barrel of the weapon in his hand.