Mrs. Prim scowled suspiciously upon the servants. Who else, indeed, could have possessed the intimate knowledge which the thief had displayed. Mrs. Prim saw it all. The open library window had been but a clever blind to hide the fact that the thief had worked from the inside and was now doubtless in the house at that very moment.
“Jonas,” she directed, “call the police at once, and see that no one, absolutely no one, leaves this house until they have been here and made a full investigation.”
“Shucks, Pudgy!” exclaimed Mr. Prim. “You don't think the thief is waiting around here for the police, do you?”
“I think that if you get the police here at once, Jonas, we shall find both the thief and the loot under our very roof,” she replied, not without asperity.
“You don't mean—” he hesitated. “Why, Pudgy, you don't mean you suspect one of the servants?”
“Who else could have known?” asked Mrs. Prim. The servants present looked uncomfortable and cast sheepish eyes of suspicion at one another.
“It's all tommy rot!” ejaculated Mr. Prim; “but I'll call the police, because I got to report the theft. It's some slick outsider, that's who it is,” and he started down stairs toward the telephone. Before he reached it the bell rang, and when he had hung up the receiver after the conversation the theft seemed a trivial matter. In fact he had almost forgotten it, for the message had been from the local telegraph office relaying a wire they had just received from Mr. Samuel Benham.
“I say, Pudgy,” he cried, as he took the steps two at a time for the second floor, “here's a wire from Benham saying Gail didn't come on that train and asking when he's to expect her.”
“Impossible!” ejaculated Mrs. Prim. “I certainly saw her aboard the train myself. Impossible!”
Jonas Prim was a man of action. Within half an hour he had set in motion such wheels as money and influence may cause to revolve in search of some clew to the whereabouts of the missing Abigail, and at the same time had reported the theft of jewels and money from his home; but in doing this he had learned that other happenings no less remarkable in their way had
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