to be able to find them.”
“It can certainly do no harm to search,” I responded, non-committally, “but I supposed you had already done so.”
“We have, in a general way,” said Morland; “but Barb means to try to find some secret cupboard or sliding panel hitherto unknown.”
“I’m with you,” I said. “Let’s begin at once. Anything is better than doing nothing; and I do think, Morland, that you’re making very little effort to solve the whole mystery. If I were you, I should call in Fleming Stone.”
“No!” cried Barbara, so sharply that I was surprised. “There is no occasion for such a thing,” she went on. “Father killed himself. His mind gave way at the last, and he was not responsible. Also, he hid the pearls, and we can find them. Come on and let us begin the search. Here are Anne and Mr. Archer—they will help, I’m sure.”
After listening to Barbara’s request, both Anne and Archer heartily agreed to help in a thorough search. We went at once to the study. Markham and Lasseter were already there, and we all went to work with a will. I think I’m safe in saying that no room was ever searched more carefully than the Van Wyck study was that day. We divided it into sections, and each of us searched every section. Mrs. Stelton and Beth Fordyce joined us later, and every possible hiding-place was ransacked. Nor was it an easy task. There were many cupboards and desks and odd pieces of furniture with secret drawers. And besides, there were many possible hiding-places in the massive and intricate ornamentations. The enormous carved fireplace seemed to mock at us with its possibilities. The carved wainscot and stuccoed wall-panels all showed interstices which, though in some cases thick with the dust of time, were large enough to hold a pearl necklace.
Anne was perhaps the most energetic of all the searchers. She ran up the spiral staircase to the musicians’ gallery and called for some one to come and help her. “For,” said she, “this carved railing is simply full of places where anything could be hidden!”
As I looked up and saw Anne leaning forward with both hands on the balcony rail, I thought I had never seen a more beautiful picture. Whether it was the mere exertion of the search, or the result of some secret knowledge of her own, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with an unnatural excitement.
I ran up the iron staircase, myself, in response to her invitation, and as no one followed us, I drew her back into the shadow of the curtain draperies, and, clasping both her hands in mine, I said earnestly, “Anne, you don’t know where the pearls are, do you?”
Her hands turned cold in mine, and the color died from her cheeks. “How dare you!” she whispered. “What do you mean? What are you implying?”
“Nothing.” And, unable to control myself, I clasped her in my arms. But only for a moment, and then, my senses returning, I released her, and said calmly, “I mean nothing, Anne. Forgive me, I lost my head for a moment. But you must know what I shall some day tell you, that I love you, and I shall yet win you. Hush, don’t answer me now! But just remember that I have utter faith in you, and because of that faith I shall probe this whole mystery to its furthest depths. I shall learn the truth, the whole truth, and then, Anne, when it is the proper time, I shall claim you, and you will give yourself to me!”
I have wondered since how I had the courage to make these statements, for Anne gave me no encouragement. She merely stared at me, her dark eyes seeming to burn like coals of fire in her white face. But as I finished she gave a little despairing sob, and said pitifully, “Oh, Raymond, you don’t know, you don’t know!”
And then Beth Fordyce came up to the gallery, and both Anne and I controlled ourselves sufficiently to speak casually, as we all continued our search. The gallery was six feet wide and extended across the whole end of the room, except for a space of about four feet from either side-wall. It rested on six enormously heavy brackets, and its railing, about three feet high, was also heavy and elaborate. Miss Fordyce looked over the railing in despair. “We never can look into every cranny of those brackets,” she said.
“We can do it by ladders from below,” I returned; “but I will say that I never saw any room so marvellously well provided with hiding-places.”
Anne stood at the end of the gallery, but not the staircase end, and looked at the great cartouche that formed the corner of the cornice, but which was so massive that its lower end was on a level with the gallery.
“I can’t reach it,” she said, stretching out her hand toward its plaster scroll-work; “but the pearls could be in any of those gilded crevices.”
“And there are four of those great ornaments in the room,” said I, looking hopelessly around at the cornice. “But if Mr. Van Wyck secreted his jewels in one of them, he must have had a long ladder; and where is the ladder?”
“He might have had a rope-ladder,” suggested Mrs. Stelton, looking self-conscious, as if she had voiced a brilliant idea.
“But, even so, it must be somewhere, and we have found nothing of the sort,” I said.
Well, the search lasted all the morning, without the least result. And, to my surprise, after luncheon Mr. Markham proposed that we should search the other rooms of the house. “I have my own reasons for this,” he declared, and as this was the first time I had known him to assume the mysterious air which is part of the stock in trade of every self-respecting detective, I began to hope his reasons might be sound ones.
No one was enthusiastic about a further search, but all agreed to it, except Anne. She declared that the privacy of her own rooms should not be invaded, and she refused to allow search to be made in them.
At this, I saw Archer look at her intently; I saw Anne flush with anger and dismay; and I saw Mr. Markham alertly observing both.
“It is a mere matter of form, Mrs. Van Wyck,” he said; “but I must insist upon it. And of course you must see that to close your rooms to our search would look—” He hesitated; even he could not voice the implication he was about to make, in the face of Anne’s scorn.
“That will do,” she said coldly, and at once led the way to her own apartments.
Her bedroom, dressing-room, and bathroom were subjected to a search, but, on the part of most of us, it was perfunctory and superficial. Except the detective, not one of us was willing to open the cupboards, boxes, or bureau-drawers. But Mr. Markham darted here and there, opening drawers, boxes, and baskets, one after another. I chanced to be sitting by a table on which was a gilded Florentine chest, which was locked. Markham demanded the key, and Anne gave it to him. But the chest was entirely empty, save for several old photographs carelessly flung in.
Disappointed, the detective stared thoughtfully about the room.
“You must understand, Mrs. Van Wyck,” he said smoothly, “that we have no suspicion, but at the same time we must make this search a thorough one. And I think we have examined everything except the book-shelves. I must ask now that the books be taken down.”
The book-shelves, which were built against the wall, covered nearly all one side of the room. At Mr. Markham’s orders, the books were taken down, three or four at a time, and returned to their places; but, although there was plenty of space behind them, no pearls were discovered.
“Shall we open each book?” inquired Mr. Archer sarcastically.
“No,” said the detective shortly. “Pearls could not be placed in a book, but they could easily be hidden behind them, and I must
