He found the dining-room shut, every door barricaded by Carmichael’s orders. Servants and waiters were gathered curiously outside. At the sound of Farnsworth’s voice demanding admittance, Gertrude threw open the door and ran to meet him, ghostly pale and trembling in every limb. Behind her, candles in hand, with which they had been going over the floor, already lighted in every part by the full power of electricity, stood Masters and Carmichael, both anxious and perturbed.
“Oh, Cousin Arden, I’m almost crazy!” cried the girl. “I can find no trace of it.”
In broken words she narrated the circumstances of the ring’s disappearance.
“I was kept in here during the search by no wish of mine, Mr. Farnsworth,” said the butler, respectfully but firmly, when his young lady had ceased speaking. “It’s a hard thing on a man that has to live on the character he gets in a place to be mixed up in an affair like this. And when you are convinced, as I am sir, that the ring is not to be found about this room, I should take it very kind of you if you’d go upstairs with me and make a search of my clothes without letting me out of your sight.”
“Absurd, Masters,” put in Carmichael, sharply. “Why, any one, to look at you, man, can see you’re as much bothered as any one of us. He has been invaluable, Mr. Farnsworth; no one could have done more in our thorough search.”
“You must excuse me for not inviting your opinion, sir,” said Farnsworth, stiffly, confronting the last speaker. “I think the man is quite right in his request. Stay where you are, Masters, and when I have been over the ground here, and have satisfied myself the ring is missing, I will go with you to your room. Gertrude, my dear, do you, too, go upstairs and search every portion of your clothes. Don’t call a maid; we need take nobody more than is necessary into our confidence. I’m inclined, as it is, to think the matter might better have been kept exclusively between the members of the family.”
“I beg to be excused, Miss Ellison,” said Carmichael, hotly. “Perhaps you will ask Mrs. Ellison to tell Mr. Farnsworth that I remained here at her particular request, to assist you in your search. The whole matter is abhorrent to me; but I think no gentleman could have refused to be of service to his hostess under the circumstances. And if Mr. Farnsworth has at any time any other remarks to make to me upon this subject I am quite at his disposition.”
But Mr. Farnsworth had apparently no desire to hold further conversation of any kind with his cousin’s guest. Gertrude, much overcome, thanked Carmichael, and ran away to her own room. There was nothing for Carmichael to do but to withdraw likewise; but he did not leave the house, remaining to perform his usual functions as a cotillon leader, with “distinguished success,” as the newspapers said next day.
By the time the guests crowded again into the Ellison dining-room that night for a buffet supper, the strange tale of the loss of the famous ring was upon everybody’s lips. How it leaked out no one knew. When Carmichael was consulted, he announced himself to be in the confidence of the family, and therefore preferred not to speak. No one felt like alluding to it before the hostess or her daughter, who were observed to “keep up” with conspicuous courage.