Of course it was locked.
He was now white as death, and actually shaking with anger.
He went to the dressing-case and mechanically opened the upper drawer.
All the costly treasures that he had purchased to tempt his bride lay there, exactly as he had placed them; he doubted if she had even seen them.
With a curse on his lips he went out, and looked into every other room on that floor; but it was, of course, a fruitless search.
Then he turned into the rear hall and went down the back stairs.
Ah! the door at the bottom was ajar.
Another moment he was in the lower hall, to find the area door unfastened; then he knew how his bird had flown.
He instantly summoned the servants, and took them to task for their negligence.
Both the cook and the chambermaid avowed that no one but the gas-man had entered or gone out by the area door that afternoon.