Paste Jewels Part 14

"All right," said Thaddeus. "You may go. Only, Mary, don't speak of the plates again to Margaret. Say as little to her as you can, in fact, about anything. If you notice anything queer, report to me at once."

The waitress left the room, and Thaddeus turned to his desk. It was plain from his appearance that light was beginning to be let in on places that up to this point had been more or less dark to him, although, as a matter of fact, he could not in any way account for the mystery of the vanished plates any more than he could for the sweeping of the library in the still hours of the night. He had an idea as to who the culprit was, and what that idea was is plain enough to us, but the question of motive was the great puzzle to him now.

"If she did take them, why should she?" was the problem he was trying to solve; and then, as if his trials were not already great enough for one day, Bessie broke excitedly into the room.

"Thaddeus!" she cried, "there's something wrong in this house; my best table-cloth is missing, our dessert-spoons are gone, and what do you suppose has happened?"

"I don't know--a volcano has developed in the cellar, I suppose,"

said Thaddeus.

"No," said Bessie, "it isn't as bad as that; but the ice-cream man has telephoned up to know whether we want the cream for dinner or for eleven o'clock, according to the order as he understands it."

"Well," said Thaddeus, "I don't see anything very unusual in an ice- cream man's needing to be told three or four times what is expected of him."

"But I never ordered any cream at all," said Bessie.

"Ah," said Thaddeus, "that's different. Did you tell Partinelli so?"

"I did, and he said he was sure he wasn't mistaken, because he had taken the order himself."

"From you?"

"No, from Margaret."

"Then it's all right," said Thaddeus; "it's a clew that fits very nicely into my theory of our recent household disturbances. If you will wait, I think things will begin to develop very shortly, and then we shall be able to dismiss this indictment against the cat we thought we heard last night."

"Do you think Margaret is dishonest?"

"I don't know," said Thaddeus. "I shouldn't be surprised if she had friends with taking ways; in other words, my dear, I suspect that Margaret is in league with people outside of this house who profit by her mistaken notions as to how to be generous; but I can't prove it yet."

"But what are you going to do?"

"Set a watch. I have sent for a detective," said Thaddeus.

This was too much for Bessie. She was simply overcome, and she sat squarely down upon the arm-chair, which fortunately was immediately behind her. I think that if it had not been, she would have plumped down upon the floor.

"Detective!" she gasped.

"Exactly," said Thaddeus, "and here he comes," he added, as a carriage was driven up to the door and one of the citizen police descended therefrom.

"You would better leave us to talk over this matter together," said Thaddeus, as he hastened to the door. "We shall be able to manage it entirely, and the details might make you nervous."

"I couldn't be more nervous than I am," said Bessie; "but I'll leave you just the same."

Whereupon she went to her room, and Thaddeus, for an hour, was closeted with the detective, to which he detailed the whole story.

"It's one of the two," said the latter, when Thaddeus had finished, "and I agree with you it is more likely to be the cook than the waitress. If it was the waitress, she couldn't have stood your examination as well as you say she did. Perhaps I'd better see her, though, and talk to her myself."

"No, I shouldn't," said Thaddeus "we'll pa.s.s you off as a business acquaintance of mine up from town, and you can stay all night and watch developments."

So it was arranged. The detective was introduced into the family as a correspondent of Thaddeus's firm, and he settled down to watch the household. Afternoon and evening went by without developments, and at about eleven o'clock every light in the house was extinguished, and the whole family, from the head of the house to the cook, had apparently retired.

At half-past eleven, however, there were decided signs of life within the walls of Thaddeus's home. The clew was working satisfactorily, and the complete revelation of the mystery was close at hand.

The remainder of the narrative can best be told in the words of the detective:

"When Mr. Perkins sent for me," he said, "and told me all that had happened, I made up my mind that he had a servant in his house for whom the police had been on the lookout for some time. I thought she was a certain Helen Malony, alias Bridget O'Shaughnessy, alias many other names, who was nothing more nor less than the agent of a clever band of thieves who had lifted thousands of dollars of swag in the line of household silver, valuable books, diamonds, and other things from private houses, where she had been employed in various capacities. I could not understand why she should have made 'way with the dishes and Mrs. Perkins's table-cloth, but there's no accounting for tastes of people in that line of business, so I didn't bother much trying to reason that matter out.

"After we'd had dinner and spent the evening in Mr. Perkins's library, the family went to bed, and I pretended to do the same.

Instead of really going to bed, I waited my chance and slipped down the stairs into the dining-room, and got under the table. At eleven o'clock the maidservants went up to their rooms, and at quarter-past there wasn't a light burning in the house. I sat there in the dining-room waiting, and just as the clock struck half-past eleven I heard a noise out on the stairs, and in less than half a minute a sulphur match was struck almost over my head under the table, and there stood the cook, her face livid as that of a dead person, and in her hand she held a candle, which she lit with the match. From where I was I could see everything she did, which was not much. She simply gathered up all the table fixings she could, and started down-stairs into the kitchen with 'em. Then I went up to Mr.

Perkins's room and called him. He put on his clothes and got out his revolver, when we stole down-stairs together, leaving Mrs.

Perkins up-stairs, with her boy's nurse and the waitress to keep her company.

"In a second we were in the laundry, which was as dark as the ace of spades, except where the light from four gas-jets in the kitchen streamed in through the half-open door. Mr. Perkins was for pouncing in on the cook at once, but I was after the rest of the gang as much as I was for the cook, and I persuaded him to wait; and, by thunder, we were paid for waiting. It was the queerest case I ever had.

"That woman--looking for all the world like a creature from some other part of the universe than this earth, her eyes burning like two huge coals, her checks as yellow and clear as so much wax, and her lips blue-white, with a great flaming red tongue sort of laid between them--worked like a slave cleaning the floor, polis.h.i.+ng the range, and scrubbing the table. Then she dusted all the chairs, and, producing the missing table-cloth, she laid it snow-white upon the table. In two minutes more the lost china was brought to light out of the flour-barrel, polished off, and set upon the table-- enough for twenty people. The dining-room things I had seen her take she arranged as tastefully as any one could want, and then the finest lay-out in the way of salads, cakes, fruits, and other good things I ever saw was brought in from the cellar. To do all this took a marvellously short time. It was five minutes of midnight went she got through, and then she devoted three minutes to looking after herself. She whisked out a small hand-gla.s.s and touched up her hair a bit. Then she washed her hands and pinned some roses on her dress, smiled a smile I can never forget in my life, and opened the kitchen door and went out.

"'She's going to give a supper!' whispered Mr. Perkins.

"'It looks like it,' said I. 'And a mighty fine one at that.'

"In a minute she came back with a pail, in which were four bottles of champagne, in her hand. This she took into the cellar, returning to the kitchen as the clock struck twelve.

"Then the queerest part began," said the detective. "For ten minutes by the clock people were apparently arriving, though, as far as Mr. Perkins or I could see, there wasn't a soul in the kitchen besides Margaret. She was talking away like one possessed. Every once in a while she'd stop in the middle of a sentence and rush to the door and shake hands with some, to us invisible, arrival. Then she'd walk in with them chatting and laughing. Several times she went through the motion of taking people's hats, and finally, if we could judge from her actions, she had 'em all seated at the table.

She pa.s.sed salads all around, helping each guest herself. She sent them fruit and cakes, and then she brought out the wine, which she distributed in the same fas.h.i.+on. She also apologized because some ice-cream she had ordered hadn't come.

"When the invisible guests appeared to have had all they could eat, she began the chatty part again, and never seemed to be disturbed but once, when she requested some one not to sing so loud for fear of disturbing the family.

"Altogether it was the weirdest and rummest thing I'd ever seen in my life. We watched it for one full hour, and then we quit because she did. At one o'clock she apparently bade her guests good-night, after which she gathered up and put away all the eatables there were left--and, of course, everything but what she had eaten herself still remained--cleaned all the dishes, restored them to their proper places in the dining-room pantry, and went back up-stairs to her room.

"Mr. Perkins and I didn't know what to make of it. There wasn't a thing stolen, and it was clear to my mind that I'd done the woman an injustice in connecting her with thieves. She was honest, except in so far as she had ordered all those salads and creams and things from time to time on Mr. Perkins's account, which was easy enough for her to do, since Mrs. Perkins let her do the ordering. There was only one explanation of the matter. She was crazy, and I said so.

"'I fancy you are right,' said Mr. Perkins. 'We'll have to send her to an asylum!'

"'That's the thing,' said I, 'and we'd better do it the first thing in the morning. I wouldn't tackle her to-night, because she's probably excited, and like as not would make a great deal of trouble.'

"And that," said the detective, "was where Mr. Perkins and I made our mistake. Next morning she wasn't to be found, and to this day I haven't heard a word of her. She disappeared just like that," he said, snapping his fingers. "Of course, I don't mean to say that anything supernatural occurred. She simply must have slipped down and out while we were asleep. The front door was wide open in the morning, and a woman answering to her description was seen to leave the Park station, five miles from the Perkins house, on the six- thirty train that morning."

"And you have no idea where she is now?" I asked of the detective, when he had finished.

"No," he answered, "not the slightest. For all I know she may be cooking for you at this very minute."

With which comforting remark he left me.

For my part, I hope the detective was wrong. If I thought there was a possibility of Margaret's ever being queen of my culinary department, I should either give up house-keeping at once and join some simple community where every man is his own chef, or dine forevermore on canned goods.

JANE