The policeman looked up at the lady.
"Is what he says true?"
"It's an entire falsehood. Any claim he may have to make must be made in the proper quarter."
She threw the door wide open. By now other members of the household had, unwisely enough, come up to see what the discussion was about. Her action revealed them.
"You see, officer, here are some more of my servants. They, also, have taken advantage of my absence, and are like that man--drunk. I dismiss them all--now. Perhaps you won't mind coming in and seeing their boxes packed; I suspect them of having property of mine in their possession."
The policeman went in--Mr. Cottrell went in also, with his assistance; he saw their boxes packed. It was a process in which the packers fared badly, the butler in particular. Each servant in the house, almost without exception, was shown to be in possession of property which was indisputably Mrs. Lamb's. Their mistress' attitude was one of magnanimity. She declined to prefer a charge against them, at any rate just then, whatever she might do later. Though, of course, under the circumstances, to pay them anything in the shape of wages was altogether out of the question. All she wanted to do was to see their backs. And she saw them. A shamefaced, miserable, draggle-tailed crew they looked, as, one after the other, under the policeman's cold official glance, they took their boxes out into the street. Then Mrs. Lamb presented that zealous young officer with a sovereign. He made short work of clearing the debris away from the front.
So Mrs. Lamb was left alone in that great mansion without a servant to wait on her of any sort or kind.
She went into the boudoir; that and her bedroom, and indeed the whole house, was exactly in the same condition in which she had found it in the morning. It seemed as if no one had moved a finger to put anything in order. Removing her hat, she sat down and tried to think. The result was a failure. Her thoughts would not travel on the lines she wished; they would launch out in undesirable directions. She had scarcely been there a minute before she began to become conscious of an unpleasant feeling that she was not alone, when, all the time, she knew she was. An odd, morbid obsession began to overpower her, as, directly she was alone, it had shown an uncomfortable aptitude to do of late. Putting her hands up to her eyes she rubbed them with her palms, as if she were endeavouring to rub something away from them. Then, removing her hands again, she looked about her, queerly.
"Of course it's ridiculous, and I suppose the real explanation is that I'm not so well as I ought to be; but it's funny how I'm always seeming to be back in his room, and how plainly I can see it all; and the bed--the bed." There was a rigid expression on her face which it was not agreeable to observe, as she herself seemed to understand. Standing up she gave herself a little shake, as if she were trying to shake something from off her. "This won't do--it won't do. It's not healthy. And yet there's something which I ought to look at--to see; to understand. It's something in the room. It's not the bed--not only the bed; it's something else. I wish I could think what it was; I wish I could understand; then perhaps it might go."
The overturned decanter which had been on the buhl table in the morning was still there. She picked it up, holding it up to the light. It was empty. She went to what seemed to be a buhl liqueur case which stood on the floor in a corner. It was locked. She went to her bedroom to look for the key. It was not in its usual place.