"Well, I'll be flabbergasted!" he said. "I say, you people, you don't
think for a minute that I put that thing there? Why, I haven't worn that
coat for a month. It's--it's a trick of yours, Max."
But Max shook his head; he looked stupefied, and stood gazing from the
clasp to the pocket of the old painting coat. Betty dropped on a folding
stool, that promptly collapsed with her and created a welcome diversion,
while Anne pounced on the clasp greedily, with a little cry.
"We will find it all now," she said excitedly. "Did you look in the
other pockets, Max?"
Then, for the first time, I was conscious of an air of constraint among
the men. Dallas was whistling softly, and Mr. Harbison, having
rescued Betty, was standing silent and aloof, watching the scene
with non-committal eyes. It was Max who spoke first, after a hurried
inventory of the other pockets.
"Nothing else," he said constrainedly. "I'll move the rest of the
canvases."
But Jim interfered, to every one's surprise.
"I wouldn't, if I were you, Max. There's nothing back there. I had 'em
out yesterday." He was quite pale.
"Nonsense!" Max said gruffly. "If it's a practical joke, Jim, why don't
you fess up? Anne has worried enough."
"The pearls are not there, I tell you," Jim began. Although the studio
was cold, there were little fine beads of moisture on his face. "I must
ask you not to move those pictures." And then Aunt Selina came to the
rescue; she stalked over and stood with her back against the stack of
canvases.
"As far as I can understand this," she declaimed, "you gentlemen are
trying to intimate that James knows something of that young woman's
jewelry, because you found part of it in his pocket. Certainly you will
not move the pictures. How do you know that the young gentleman who said
he found it there didn't have it up his sleeve?"
She looked around triumphantly, and Max glowered. Dallas soothed her,
however.
"Exactly so," he said. "How do we know that Max didn't have the clasp
up his sleeve? My dear lady, neither my wife nor I care anything for the
pearls, as compared with the priceless pearl of peace. I suggest tea on
the roof; those in favor--? My arm, Miss Caruthers."
It was all well enough for Jim to say later that he didn't dare to have
the canvases moved, for he had stuck behind them all sorts of chorus
girl photographs and life-class crayons that were not for Aunt Selina's
eye, besides four empty siphons, two full ones, and three bottles of
whisky. Not a soul believed him; there was a a new element of suspicion
and discord in the house.
Every one went up on the roof and left him to his mystery. Anne drank
her tea in a preoccupied silence, with half-closed eyes, an attitude
that boded ill to somebody. The rest were feverishly gay, and Aunt
Selina, with a pair of arctics on her feet and a hot-water bottle at her
back, sat in the middle of the tent and told me familiar anecdotes of
Jimmy's early youth (had he known, he would have slain her). Betty and
Mr. Harbison had found a medicine ball, and were running around like
a pair of children. It was quite certain that neither his escape from
death nor my accusation weighed heavily on him.