Part 4 (2/2)
”Well, no, I can't be sure,” said Holar, ”but it could have so happened, very easily I was talking earnestly all the way ho back fro absent-one, supposing it to have been in the pocket of the overcoat when I hung it in the hall just before dressing for dinner? You have had Robert years”
”He has been with h character fro even suspected of dishonesty”
”He is the only ht No one could have come in from the front while ere at dinner”
”No one without our knowledge The door has a queer sort of latch or lock Soo and blow open, but some servant who had lived here before we ca it that proved very effective No; nobody was in the hall except McLean, and of course that is out of the question Besides, he had not time He was only there half aHe remembered perfectly, however, that it was nearer five minutes that Mr McLean had to wait there while the doctor was finishi+ng that confounded story Nevertheless, as the doctor said, that was out of the question
”Oh, no!” he broke in hurriedly, ”I cannot think any one here could have taken it It will turn up soht, or else I've dropped it Don't think of it, doctor; that distresses me far worse than the loss Suppose we turn in now, and I'll look around my room once more”
Half an hour later the doctor tapped softly at his guest's door
”Found it?” he asked
”No, not yet; going to bed,” was the answer, accoht, doctor”
Mr Holmes had indeed found no pocket-book The discovery he made was far less welcome An amethyst pin with sleeve-buttons to hly valued, had disappeared fro-case There were three pairs of sleepless eyes in the doctor's quarters when the sentries were shouting the call of ”Half-past twelve o'clock” Nellie Bayard, in her dainty little white roo over a tear-stained pillow her prayer for the safety of Randall McLean, as riding post-haste down the swollen Platte Dr
Bayard, too excited to go to bed, had thrown hi an alliance for his fair daughter that would mean power and position for hi with darkened face at his bedside, gazing blankly at the handkerchief he had picked up on the floor just in front of the bureau, a handkerchief embroidered in one corner with the letters R McL
Over at the major's quarters were other sleepless eyes It was late, nearlyhis telegraphic despatches to department head-quarters, and when he reached his ho up for hi of the Peggy O'Dowd order, and prone at times to order hiht from other sources She could not bear that any man or woman should suppose for an instant that her major was not the embodiment of every attribute that becae of arrison squabble or scandal rather than have him annoyed by tales that were of no consequence; but now she had that to tell that concerned the honor and welfare of the whole command, and she felt that he must know at once
”Major,” she said to hiained the seclusion of thefurther to you about that story froladly have avoided the subject
”I know that he bade Mrs Bruce destroy the letter she got and say no more about it,” pursued Mrs Miller, ”but she and I are very old friends, as you know, and she could not well avoid telling ot Now, it was bad enough that these things should have occurred there, and that suspicion should have attached to sos are worse than ever now Have you seen Mr Hatton to-day?”
”I've seen hi on--on such a subject”
”Now, I don't want you to blame Mr Hatton, major You must remember that he has always said that I was like a h the mountain fever, and he has always confided in ht while he was at the Gordons', the saht he came here after tattoo, somebody went to his room and stole froreenbacks and a beautiful scarf-pin that his brother gave him”
”And he did not report it to me?” asked the h he meant to, because Mr McLean induced him to promise not to, because----”
”Well, because what? What reason could young McLean assign that could justify his concealing such aofficer?”
”Because he said it was cruel to allooarrison--husband, brother, or father--to take her part”
”A woman! What? some servant?”
”Worse than that, major,--Miss Forrest”