I realized that a meeting was inevitable, but I wanted time to
think how I would meet him. It would be impossible to cut him,
without rousing the curiosity of the others to fever pitch; and
it was equally impossible to ignore the disgraceful episode on
the stairs. As it happened, however, I need not have worried. I
went down to dinner, languidly, when every one was seated, and
found Max at my right, and Mr. Harbison moved over beside Bella.
Every one was talking at once, for Flannigan, ambling around the
table as airily as he walked his beat, had presented Bella with
her bracelet on a salad plate, garnished with romaine. He had
found it in the furnace room, he said, where she must have
dropped it. And he looked at me stealthily, to approve his
mendacity!

Every one was famished, and as they ate they discussed the board
in the area way, and pretended to deride it as a clever bit of
press work, to revive a dying sensation. No one was deceived;
Anne's pearls and the attempt to escape, coming just after,
pointed only to one thing. I looked around the table, dazed.
Flannigan, almost the only unknown quantity, might have tried to
escape the night before, but he would not have been in dress
clothes. Besides, he must be eliminated as far as the pearls were
concerned, having been locked in the furnace room the night they
were stolen. There was no one among the girls to suspect. The
Mercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they
wanted legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no
question about it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to
their bosom--or is it a viper?--and the Harbison man was the
creature. Although I must say that, looking over the table, at
Jimmy's breadth and not very imposing personality, at Max's lean