"What did I tell you?" she asked. "Some one was in this house last night; I heard them distinctly. There must have been two, and they quarreled—" she shuddered.
We went on down-stairs into the quiet and peace of the dining-room again. I got some hot coffee for Margery, for she looked shaken, and found I had missed my train.
"I am beginning to think I am being pursued by a malicious spirit," she said, trying to smile. "I came away from home because people got into the house at night and left queer signs of their visits, and now, here at Bellwood, where nothing ever happens, the moment I arrive things begin to occur. And—just as it was at home—the house was so well locked last night."
I did not tell her of the open hall door, just as I had kept from her the fact that only the contents of Harry Wardrop's bag had been taken. That it had all been the work of one person, and that that person, having in some way access to the house, had also stolen the pearls, was now my confident belief.
I looked at Bella—the maid—as she moved around the dining-room; her stolid face was not even intelligent; certainly not cunning. Heppie, the cook and only other servant, was partly blind and her horizon was the diameter of her largest kettle. No—it had not been a servant, this mysterious intruder who passed the Maitland silver on the sideboard without an attempt to take it, and who floundered around an attic at night, in search of nothing more valuable than patchwork quilts and winter flannels. It is strange to look back and think how quietly we sat there; that we could see nothing but burglary—or an attempt at it—in what we had found.
It must have been after nine o'clock when Bella came running into the room. Ordinarily a slow and clumsy creature, she almost flew. She had a tray in her hand, and the dishes were rattling and threatening overthrow at every step. She brought up against a chair, and a cup went flying. The breaking of a cup must have been a serious offense in Miss Letitia Maitland's house, but Bella took no notice whatever of it.
"Miss Jane," she gasped, "Miss Jane, she's—she's—"
"Hurt!" Margery exclaimed, rising and clutching at the table for support.
"No. Gone—she's gone! She's been run off with!"
"Nonsense!" I said, seeing Margery's horrified face. "Don't come in here with such a story. If Miss Jane is not in her room, she is somewhere else, that's all."