"How dare you speak like that?" shrieked Watson, "suspecting and accusing your poor father's faithful servants. I suppose you mean I'm the thief, or Elkington?"
"I accuse nobody, Watson. I only ask for an explanation of what is so mysterious to me."
But Watson bounced out of the room, saying she was not going to stay there to be called a common thief; she should pack her box that very night, and get away from a house where she was so insulted.
The servants filed out of the room, but the old butler lingered behind.
"Sir," he said, "do you think that that woman has done it?"
"Elkington, I have no proof, and therefore I do not like to say that any one has done it. It may have been a mistake on my father's part."
"Not likely, sir, not likely; he was so slow and careful-like about things of that sort."
"Well, Elkington, I don't know what to think."
"I do know what to think," said the old butler to himself, as he went out of the room.
But the next day a solution of the mystery came to light. It was late in the evening, and when Elkington was waiting at dinner, that there was a loud ring at the front door. He went to open it, for, now Watson was gone, he was doing most of her work as well as his own. He came back with a card in his hand, which he said had been given to him by a gentleman who had just called, and who was now in the library.