"I should say so!" Gilfain added. "That rotter would have been mobbed at a bout in London."
Boelke mumbled: "You are very strong, major."
Finnerty, peeping into the silver box that had been replaced by the servants on the table, asked: "Any of you chaps got that bell clapper? I left it here."
Nobody had; nobody knew anything about it. Instinctively each one felt his pockets to be sure that, in the excitement of the struggle, he hadn't put it away; then each one remembered that he hadn't seen it since the major deposited it in the silver box.
"The table was upset," Swinton said. "Look on the floor."
Even Prince Ananda joined in the search. Then the servants were questioned. They knew nothing of its whereabouts; all denied that they had seen the keddah sahib put it in the box.
A little constraint crept into the search. Prince Ananda's brother-in-law and the temple priest had been there and had departed; the prince's servants had been going and coming.
"It may have rolled off the terrace into the water," Prince Ananda suggested. "In the morning I'll have the lake searched at this point."
"It doesn't matter," Finnerty declared.
"It does, my dear major," Ananda objected. "I'll put pressure on the servants, for I'm very much afraid one of them has stolen it. At any rate, you've been looted in my house, and if I don't find your sapphire you shall have the finest jewel Hamilton Company can send up from Calcutta."