CHAPTER VIII.

THE MISSING SNUFF-BOXES

When she reached home, Rhoda was met in the hall by Sir Robert. His usually placid countenance was disturbed, and a horrible suspicion flashed through her mind, as he came straight towards her, that he was going to ask her some awkward questions about Lady Sarah or Mr. Rotherfield.

Advancing towards her so eagerly that it was clear he had been waiting for her, he said:

“Oh, Miss Pembury, I’m so glad you’ve come back. I’ve been waiting for you this half hour.” Then, perceiving that she grew white, and was evidently alarmed, he added with a rather forced smile: “Don’t look so frightened. It’s nothing serious, at least nothing very serious. This way, please.”

Trembling and cold, Rhoda followed him into the study, where he shut the door and made her sit down before he would come to the point.

“Now I don’t want you to worry yourself, but can you tell me whether we moved the snuff-boxes from their place in the third specimen table from the end of the gallery?”

Deadly pale, Rhoda drew a long breath.

“No,” she replied hoarsely. “They were there this morning; I’m sure of it.”

Sir Robert frowned in distress.

“I thought so,” he said. “Well, come with me now, and you will see that the three best are missing.”

“Oh!” broke from her lips in such a tone of distress that he put his hand kindly on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry yourself about it,” said he. “They’ll turn up all right, I’ve no doubt. But, if you don’t mind, we’ll just go into the gallery together and make sure of the fact of their disappearance.”

Scarcely able to walk, so overpowered was she by a nameless dread, Rhoda accompanied him along the passage which led to the gallery. Since Rhoda had undertaken so much work for him in connection with his treasures, the baronet had had a set of duplicate keys made, so that, while he kept the one in his own possession, Rhoda had charge of the other. She had been rather reluctant to receive this mark of confidence, not feeling quite sure that Lady Sarah might not resent it. But Sir Robert had insisted, and she had found it a convenience to go into the gallery when she had a spare moment, to go on with the work she had undertaken.

Now, however, she began to wish with all her heart that she had not undertaken this responsibility, perceiving that she might have involved herself in a serious difficulty.

Quickly and in silence she followed Sir Robert, who opened the door of the gallery with his own key, turned on the electric light, and led the way to the end, where, in a glass-covered specimen table, it was his habit to keep about a dozen old snuff-boxes of exquisite workmanship, the aggregate value of which was some thousands of pounds.

He stopped short in front of the table, and Rhoda looked down at it. One, two, three of the treasures were missing, and the choice had been a most judicious one, for the three boxes which had disappeared were all of gold, all painted by celebrated artists, and all mounted with jewels.

“You see the three have gone,” said he, while Rhoda stood beside him, unable to utter a word. “And the rest have been so carefully arranged that they look, at first sight, as if none were missing.”

“They’ve been stolen,” said Rhoda hoarsely.

“That’s what I think. Now the question is when, how, and by whom? In the first place whose keys have been got hold of--yours or mine? Mine have never been out of my pocket or my hand all day. What about yours?”

Rhoda uttered a low cry.

“I left them in my room, in the pocket of the dress I wore this morning, when I changed it for this one to go to the flower show,” she answered, brokenly.

“Some one has perhaps got at them. Would you mind going up to see whether they are still in the pocket of your dress?”

His tone was just as kind and gentle as ever; but to Rhoda, who was suffering an agony of mortification at what she thought he must consider her carelessness, fled along the gallery without a word. But his kind voice checked her before she reached the door. He was calling to her quite gently:

“Miss Pembury! My dear Miss Pembury, don’t take this so much to heart. I’ve no doubt the keys will turn up. But even if they should not, pray, pray understand that you are in no way to blame.”

“Oh yes, I am, oh yes, I am. I ought to have taken them with me!”

“Not at all. I often leave my own keys in the pocket of my coat, and there was not the least reason for you to think yours were any less safe. And remember, we don’t yet know whether it was your keys that were used. A lock may be picked, you know.”

But, though Rhoda thanked him and tried to hope, she was weighed down by the dreadful certainty that it was indeed her keys which had been used by the thief. And there flashed through her mind as she ran up the stairs a horrible vague dread that this theft might have been committed with the object of discrediting her with Sir Robert.

She flew along the corridor, locked herself in her room, and opening the door of her wardrobe, pulled out the dress with trembling hands, and felt in the pockets.

The keys were not there.

With a low cry, she put the dress back, and looked about the room in the vain hope that she might have dropped the keys somewhere while she was putting her dress away.

But it was hoping against hope, and at last she had to give up her search, and stealing out of her room, feeling as guilty as if she herself had been the thief, she went slowly back along the corridor and down the stairs, to the study.

“Come in,” cried Sir Robert in his kind voice.

She could scarcely turn the handle of the door, and when she was inside the room, she could do nothing but utter whispered exclamations of distress.

The baronet laughed at her in the most reassuring manner, and pushed her gently into a chair.

“Don’t behave like that, you silly, silly girl!” said he in a robust and reassuring voice. “I see what it is: you haven’t found the keys. They’re gone. Is that it?”

She bowed her head in assent.

“I’m quite, quite sure I put them in my pocket this morning, and that I didn’t take them out again after I’d done my work in the gallery. Some one must have taken them out. Some one who knew where I kept them.”

She sat up and stared at him almost fiercely.

The words distressed him, she saw.

“Do you think that perhaps they fell as you were either putting them in or taking them out again? Do you think it possible that you may have let them drop, and that they may have been picked up by one of the servants? I should hate to have to suspect any member of my household, but there are some who have not been here long, and one knows that some one must have taken the snuff-boxes.”

“I should have heard them fall,” said Rhoda uncertainly.

“Do you think there was a hole in your pocket?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Or that they may have slipped out on to the floor of your room?”

“I’ve hunted everywhere,” said Rhoda.

“Of course it is plain that the things have been stolen, and probably by means of your keys,” said he. “But I would rather think that the keys had been picked up and that the finder yielded to a sudden temptation than that a deliberate plot was hatched to rob me by hunting in your pockets while you were away. That would be abominable, odious, unpardonable.”

Sir Robert grew quite warm as he thought of such an act of treachery.

“I wonder if I did drop them,” said Rhoda doubtfully. “But I really don’t think it possible. I’m not so careless as all that,” she went on piteously. “When I look upon it as such a high honour to have the keys at all.”

She threw at Sir Robert a look so plaintive, so full of apology and despair that he could not help smiling, as he told her not to worry her head about it, but to be sure that everything would come right.

“If it is one of the young servants who has been tempted,” said he, “I will try to get at him or her through the housekeeper, or by some other means, and to persuade him or her into restitution. So dry your eyes and go and dress for dinner, and try to forget all about this little _contretemps_.”

With dumb gratitude in her eyes poor Rhoda stole upstairs again and shut herself once more in her room. She was heartbroken over the unhappy affair, and could not help considering herself to have failed in her duty as custodian.

As for the identity of the thief, she could not even make a reasonable guess. The household was a large one, there were members of it she had never even seen. As perhaps none of them knew that she had duplicate keys, except one or two of the upper servants who were wholly to be trusted, Rhoda began to ask herself whether Sir Robert’s suggestion might not be a good one, that she had dropped the keys on to the soft carpet of the corridor as she came out of the study, instead of slipping them into her pocket.

In the meantime she would make sure that her pocket was really sound, as she supposed.

So she opened her wardrobe once more, and thrust her hand again into the pocket in which she usually carried the keys.

And the keys were there, not one missing. Rhoda pulled them out with a hand that was wet and trembling, and sat down on the nearest chair, sick at heart and cold with a strange, new fear.