“Thanks,” Barclay, concealing his disappointment, slipped a tip in Charles’ ready hand. “Is luncheon to be at the usual hour?”
“Half an hour earlier, sor.” Charles started to clear the table as Barclay rose. “Mrs. Ogden has engaged extra help for the dinner tonight, and I have to show them the silver and things, sor.”
“I hope the new servants all come highly recommended,” remarked Barclay, with sarcastic emphasis which the man servant never saw. “Mrs. Ogden’s handsome silver and jewels would be a temptation, a grave temptation, to thieves.”
“Yes, sor.” The butler looked considerably startled. “The extra footmen come from the caterer, sor. Will you take the paper, sor?”
“No, I’ve read it,” and stuffing his hands in his pockets Barclay left the room. In the hall he went direct to the mantel and stared dully at the remaining Dresden jar. Inwardly he anathematized the absent-mindedness which had cost him the loss of his most precious possession.
Had Rose, the parlor maid, seen Ethel’s miniature before she broke the china jar, and stolen it, or had the miniature also been destroyed in the fall? The latter hardly seemed likely, for he had found no trace of broken glass or ivory among the china. She might have accidently broken the miniature and stolen the gold case, but even then there would have been some ivory or glass picked up in the débris. Barclay sighed heavily. Undoubtedly the girl had stolen the miniature, for what reason he could not imagine, and his best plan was to go to Cohoes and try and find her.
On his way to his bedroom Barclay paused in front of Walter Ogden’s den and listened. Had Ethel taken up her customary post in the den? The tinkle of the telephone bell sounded behind the closed door, and he heard her voice answering the call. A great yearning to see her swept over him, and he raised his hand to knock at the closed door, but the muscles contracted at a sudden thought, and his knuckles touched the mahogany so lightly that no sound followed the contact. With a gesture of despair he continued his way down the corridor.
Barclay’s presence outside the door had not gone undetected. Ethel, one hand resting on the desk, waited breathlessly as his familiar footsteps sounded down the corridor and stopped before the den. Would he come in? Her sad eyes brightened at the thought. Instinctively she answered the telephone’s abrupt summons, and as she received the Central’s apologetic: “Wrong number, excuse me, please,” she heard Barclay’s receding footsteps and turned wearily back to her work.
As the morning wore on her attention wandered, and throwing down her pen in despair, she took from the top drawer of her typewriting desk a small object, and removing the chamois, looked at her miniature.
All through the sleepless night, when her tired brain refused to refute or accept the evidence of Julian Barclay’s complicity in the poisoning of Dwight Tilghman, and agonizing sobs shook her, the touch of the miniature under her pillow had brought a ray of comfort. Julian Barclay had treasured her miniature, had kissed it—Ethel had slipped the miniature out of its chamois covering, and fallen into fitful slumber holding it against her white cheek.