certainly am not going to sell it," said Aunt Patricia, in a voice that should have closed the conversation. She had that day received a letter from her husband announcing his early return from India, and it had not cheered her at all.
"I did hear someone say once that Uncle Hector was offered thirty thousand pounds for it," said Augustus.
"Did you?" replied Aunt Patricia, and at that moment the Chaplain returned, carrying the sapphire on its white velvet cushion, under its glass dome. He placed it on a table under the big hanging chandelier, with its countless cut-glass pendants and circle of electric bulbs.
There it lay, its incredible, ineffable, glowing blue fascinating us as we gazed upon it.
"It is a wonderful thing," said Isobel, and I wondered how often those very words had been said of it.
"Oh, let me kiss it," cried Claudia, and with one hand the Chaplain raised the glass dome, and with the other handed the sapphire to Aunt Patricia, who examined it as though she had not handled it a thousand times. She looked through it at the light. She then passed it to Claudia, who fondled it awhile.
We all took it in turn, Augustus throwing it up and catching it as he murmured, "Thirty thousand pounds for a bit of glass!"
When Michael got it, I thought he was never going to pass it on. He weighed and rubbed and examined it, more in the manner of a dealer than an admirer of the beautiful.
Finally, the Chaplain put it back on its cushion and replaced the glass cover.
We sat and stood around for a few minutes, while the Chaplain said something about Indian Rajahs and their marvellous hereditary and historical jewels.
I was standing close to the table, bending over and peering into the depths of the sapphire again; Augustus was reiterating, "Who says a game of pills, pills, pills?" when, suddenly, as occasionally happened, the electric light failed, and we were plunged in complete darkness.
"What's Fergusson up to now?" said Digby, alluding to the head chauffeur, who was responsible for the engine.
"It'll come on again in a minute," said Aunt Patricia, and added, "Burdon will bring candles if it doesn't. . . . Don't wander about, anybody, and knock things over."
Somebody brushed lightly against me as I stood by the table.
"Ghosts and goblins!" said Isobel in a sepulchral voice. "Who's got a match? A skeleton hand is about to clutch my throat. I can see . . ."
"Everybody," I remarked, as the light came on again, and we blinked at each other in the dazzling glare, so suddenly succeeding the velvet darkness.
"Saved!" said Isobel, with an exaggerated sigh of relief, and then, as I looked at her, she stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and then pointed speechless. . . .
The "Blue Water" had vanished. The white velvet cushion was bare, and the glass cover covered nothing but the cushion.
§2.
We must have looked a foolish band as we stood and stared, for a second or two, at that extraordinarily empty-looking abode of the great sapphire. I never saw anything look so empty in my life. Aunt Patricia broke the silence and the spell.
"Your joke, Augustus?" she enquired, in that rarely-used tone of hers that would have made an elephant feel small.
"Eh? Me? No, Aunt! Really! I swear! I never touched it," declared the youth, colouring warmly.
"Well--there's someone with a sense of humour all his own," she observed, and I was glad that I was not the misguided humorist. Also I was glad that she had regarded the joke as more probably Augustan than otherwise.
"You were standing by the table, John," she continued, turning to me. "Are you the jester?"
"No, Aunt," I replied with feeble wit, "only the Geste."
As Digby and Michael both flatly denied any part in this poor practical joke, Aunt Patricia turned to the girls.
"Surely not?" she said, raising her fine eyebrows.
"No, Aunt, I was too busy with ghosts and goblins and the skeleton hand, to use my own hand for sticking and peeling--I mean picking and stealing," said Isobel.
"I haven't got it," said Claudia.
Lady Brandon and the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot eyed the six of us with cold severity.
"Let us say nothing of the good taste displayed, either in the act or in the denial," said the former, "but agree that the brilliant joke has been carried far enough, shall we?"
"Put the brilliant joke back, John," said Augustus. "You were the only one near it when the light went out."
"I have said that I didn't touch the sapphire," I replied.
"Suppose you put it back, Ghastly," said Digby, and his voice had an edge on it.
"And suppose you do!" blustered Augustus angrily.
Digby, who was standing behind him, suddenly raised his right knee with sufficient force to propel the speaker in the direction of the table--an exhibition of ill manners and violence that passed unrebuked by Aunt Patricia.
"I haven't got the beastly thing, I tell you," shouted the smitten one, turning ferociously upon Digby. "It's one of you three rotters."
It was an absurd situation, rapidly degenerating into an unpleasant one, and my aunt's lips were growing thinner, and her eyebrows beginning to contract toward her high-bridged nose.
"Look here, sillies!" said Isobel, as we brothers glared at Augustus and he glared at us, "I am going to turn all the lights out again for two minutes. Whoever played the trick, and told the fib, is to put the 'Blue Water' back. Then no one will know who did it. See?" and she walked away to the door, by which were the electric-light switches.
"Now!" she said. "Everybody keep still except the villain, and when I switch the lights on again, there will be the 'Blue Water' laughing at us."
"Oh, rot," said Augustus, and out went the lights before Aunt Patricia or the Chaplain made any comment.
Now it occurred to me that it would be very interesting to know who had played this silly practical joke and told a silly lie after it. I therefore promptly stepped towards the table, felt the edge of it with my right hand and then, with a couple of tentative dabs, laid my left hand on top of the glass dome. Whoever came to return the sapphire must touch me, and him I would promptly seize. I might not have felt so interested in the matter had it not been twice pointed out that it was I who stood against the table when the light failed.
Isobel's device for securing the prompt return of the sapphire was an excellent one, but I saw no reason why I should linger under the suspicion of having been an ass and a liar, for the benefit of Augustus.
So there I stood and waited.
While doing so, it occurred to me to wonder what would happen if the joker did not have the good sense to take advantage of the opportunity provided by Isobel. . . .
Perfect silence reigned
