“It looked, then, as if someone had arranged it so? Not as if it had been, say, blown over by any chance?”
“It couldn’t have blown over, Miss Emily! It was too heavy. And it wasn’t near the window, either.”
“And the pieces, you say, were gathered together, as if someone had placed them so? Very well, I understand! Now, Ellen, have any of the other maids been upstairs to your knowledge since Mademoiselle left her room at seven o’clock?”
“They say they have not, miss, for I asked them, and I’ve been in the kitchen all the time. We were busy clearing away after tea, and getting the refreshments ready for supper, and then we came and watched the young ladies dance.”
“You would have noticed if anyone had gone upstairs?”
“I think I should, being together all the time. They have no work upstairs at this hour—”
“I know that, but I must speak to them myself later on. There is one thing more, Ellen. Your work upstairs takes you a good time. In passing to and fro, you didn’t happen to see anyone in or near Mademoiselle’s room, I suppose? Speak up, please! Remember I rely upon you to do all in your power to help me to get to the bottom of this mystery!”
The last words were added in a warning voice, for Ellen’s start of dismay and drawn, miserable brows too plainly betrayed the truth of her mistress’s surmise.
“I saw—when I went up first in the middle of the dancing, I was at the end of the passage, and I saw little Miss O’Shaughnessy coming out of a room. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was Mademoiselle’s!”
She had said it, and in an instant every eye in the room was riveted upon Pixie, and every heart sank woefully at the sight of her crimson, agitated face. It said much for the hold which she had gained on her companions’ affections that at this moment the feeling in every girl’s breast was that she would prefer to find the culprit in almost any other girl in the school than in dear, loving, kind-hearted Irish Pixie. Perhaps Miss Phipps felt the same, but it did not become her to show favouritism, and her voice was very stern and cold.