“The Carcellini emerald!” repeated Farnsworth, who, between vexation at his wife’s unaccountable departure and stupefaction at his cousin’s speech, did not know where to find himself. “Is it possible you intrusted it to Gertrude?” “Their delay distracts me. If it had been underneath the table, at Gertrude’s feet, where it might naturally have slipped down her satin skirt, they would have returned by now.” “What’s Carmichael got to do with it?” asked Farnsworth, wrathfully. He, better than any other, appreciated the enormous loss of the splendid gem. “If I were you, Elizabeth, I would not intrust the duties of a host to a pretentious nobody like that fellow. Of course I’ll go. I never heard of such a thing in all my life.” He found the dining-room shut, every door barricaded by Carmichael’s orders. Servants and waiters were gathered curiously outside. At the sound of Farnsworth’s voice demanding admittance, Gertrude threw open the door and ran to meet him, ghostly pale and trembling in every limb. Behind her, candles in hand, with which they had been going over the floor, already lighted in every part by the full power of electricity, stood Masters and Carmichael, both anxious and perturbed. “Oh, Cousin Arden, I’m almost crazy!” cried the girl. “I can find no trace of it.” In broken words she narrated the circumstances of the ring’s disappearance. “I was kept in here during the search by no wish of mine, Mr. Farnsworth,” said the butler, respectfully but firmly, when his young lady had ceased speaking. “It’s a hard thing on a man that has to live on the character he gets in a place to be mixed up in an affair like this. And when you are convinced, as I am sir, that the ring is not to be found about this room, I should take it very kind of you if you’d go upstairs with me and make a search of my clothes without letting me out of your sight.” “Absurd, Masters,” put in Carmichael, sharply. “Why, any one, to look at you, man, can see you’re as much bothered as any one of us. He has been invaluable, Mr. Farnsworth; no one could have done more in our thorough search.” “You must excuse me for not inviting your opinion, sir,” said Farnsworth, stiffly, confronting the last speaker. “I think the man is quite right in his request. Stay where you are, Masters, and when I have been over the ground here, and have satisfied myself the ring is missing, I will go with you to your room. Gertrude, my dear, do you, too, go upstairs and search every portion of your clothes. Don’t call a maid; we need take nobody more than is necessary into our confidence. I’m inclined, as it is, to think the matter might better have been kept exclusively between the members of the family.”