“The diamonds came, and your plans were not perfected. You wanted to keep your skirts clean, yet you wanted to profit by the inheritance of your friend. On the night the diamonds arrived, you remained downstairs long after the others were in their rooms—all except Bernice. You did not tell me the truth when you said that you were almost the first one on the second floor that night.” Nick then turned to the company in general as he continued: “Seeing that whatever was done must be done at once, Anton that night confided his plans to Bernice, proposing that he get the diamonds and that she dispose of them in a way yet to be arranged. Bernice consented, and Anton went to his room to watch for a chance to steal the diamonds. In the meantime, Charley had been given a sleeping potion in his lemonade. This was done by Anton doctoring up his own and deftly changing glasses. The substitution was witnessed by Mrs. Maynard, who then began to fear not only for the safety of the gems, but also for the future of her son. “Anton went to his room late, after arranging the details of the robbery with Bernice, and sat by his door in undress, waiting for the house to become quiet. While he sat there he heard his mother leave her room and cross the hall to the apartment where the diamonds were, and where the owner was sound asleep, with the gems unprotected in an old trunk, which was not even locked. Alarmed at the thought of what might take place, Mrs. Maynard had decided to herself take charge of the diamonds for the night. Too loyal to her son to betray him, and thus put Charley on his guard, she resolved to risk her own reputation for honesty in defending the property. “After a time Mrs. Maynard recrossed the hall to her own room, leaving her son in a frame of mind little short of desperation. All his plans had failed! Then it was that he heard the door of his stepfather’s room open. The old man, feeling that something unusual was going on, had watched the hall, and had heard his wife enter and leave Charley’s room. That day the mother had pleaded with her husband in the interest of her spendthrift son, and had been refused the money favor she asked. “It was natural, then, that the old man should believe that his wife had become a midnight thief in order to provide her son with money. After Mrs. Maynard returned to her room Mr. Maynard went there, light in hand, and in no gentle frame of mind. He found the diamonds where his wife had placed them—in a little drawer of her dresser—accused her of stealing them, refused to listen to any explanation, and carried the gems off to his own room.” “You are an evil spirit!” gasped Bernice. “You have eyes in this house when you are away in New York.”