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to clutch my throat. I can see . . ."
"Everybody," I remarked, as the light came on again, and we blinked at each other in the dazzling glare, so suddenly succeeding the velvet darkness.
"Saved!" said Isobel, with an exaggerated sigh of relief, and then, as I looked at her, she stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and then pointed speechless. . . .
The "Blue Water" had vanished. The white velvet cushion was bare, and the glass cover covered nothing but the cushion.
§2.
We must have looked a foolish band as we stood and stared, for a second or two, at that extraordinarily empty-looking abode of the great sapphire. I never saw anything look so empty in my life. Aunt Patricia broke the silence and the spell.
"Your joke, Augustus?" she enquired, in that rarely-used tone of hers that would have made an elephant feel small.
"Eh? Me? No, Aunt! Really! I swear! I never touched it," declared the youth, colouring warmly.
"Well--there's someone with a sense of humour all his own," she observed, and I was glad that I was not the misguided humorist. Also I was glad that she had regarded the joke as more probably Augustan than otherwise.
"You were standing by the table, John," she continued, turning to me. "Are you the jester?"
"No, Aunt," I replied with feeble wit, "only the Geste."
As Digby and Michael both flatly denied any part in this poor practical joke, Aunt Patricia turned to the girls.
"Surely not?" she said, raising her fine eyebrows.
"No, Aunt, I was too busy with ghosts and goblins and the skeleton hand, to use my own hand for sticking and peeling--I mean picking and stealing," said Isobel.
"I haven't got it," said Claudia.
Lady Brandon and the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot eyed the six of us with cold severity.
"Let us say nothing of the good taste displayed, either in the act or in the denial," said the former, "but agree that the brilliant joke has been carried far enough, shall we?"
"Put the brilliant joke back, John," said Augustus. "You were the only one near it when the light went out."
"I have said that I didn't touch the sapphire," I replied.
"Suppose you put it back, Ghastly," said Digby, and his voice had an edge on it.
"And suppose you do!" blustered Augustus angrily.
Digby, who was standing behind him, suddenly raised his right knee with sufficient force to propel the speaker in the direction of the table--an exhibition of ill manners and violence that passed unrebuked by Aunt Patricia.
"I haven't got the beastly thing, I tell you," shouted the smitten one, turning ferociously upon Digby. "It's one of you three rotters."
It was an absurd situation, rapidly degenerating into an unpleasant one, and my aunt's lips were growing thinner, and her eyebrows beginning to contract toward her high-bridged nose.
"Look here, sillies!" said Isobel, as we brothers glared at Augustus and he glared at us, "I am going to turn all the lights out again for two minutes. Whoever played the trick, and told the fib, is to put the 'Blue Water' back. Then no one will know who did it. See?" and she walked away to the door, by which were the electric-light switches.
"Now!" she said. "Everybody keep still except the villain, and when I switch the lights on again, there will be the 'Blue Water' laughing at us."
"Oh, rot," said Augustus, and out went the lights before Aunt Patricia or the Chaplain made any comment.
Now it occurred to me that it would be very interesting to know who had played this silly practical joke and told a silly lie after it. I therefore promptly stepped towards the table, felt the edge of it with my right hand and then, with a couple of tentative dabs, laid my left hand on top of the glass dome. Whoever came to return the sapphire must touch me, and him I would promptly seize. I might not have felt so interested in the matter had it not been twice pointed out that it was I who stood against the table when the light failed.
Isobel's device for securing the prompt return of the sapphire was an excellent one, but I saw no reason why I should linger under the suspicion of having been an ass and a liar, for the benefit of Augustus.
So there I stood and waited.
While doing so, it occurred to me to wonder what would happen if the joker did not have the good sense to take advantage of the opportunity provided by Isobel. . . .
Perfect silence reigned in the big room.
"I can't do it, my boots creak," said Digby suddenly.
"I can't find the cover," said Michael.
"Another minute, villain," said Isobel. "Hurry up."
And then I was conscious that someone was breathing very near me. I felt a faint touch on my elbow. A hand came down lightly against my wrist--and I grabbed.
My left hand was round a coat-sleeve, beneath which was the stiff cuff of a dress shirt, and my right grasped a wrist. I was very glad that it was a man's arm. Had it been a girl's I should have let go. Ghastly Gustus, of course. . . . It was just the silly sort of thing he would do, and it was just like him to take advantage of the darkness, when he found the joke had fallen remarkably flat. I did not envy him the look that would appear on Aunt Patricia's face when the light went up and he was discovered in my grip.
I would have let him go, I think, had he not endeavoured to put the blame on me, and insisted on my nearness to the table when the light failed.
I was a little surprised that he did not struggle, and I was prepared for a sudden violent twist and a swift evasion in the dark.
He kept perfectly still.
"I am going to count ten, and then up goes the light. Are you ready, villain?" came the voice of Isobel from the door.
"Yes, I've put it back," said Digby.
"So have I," said Michael, close to me.
"And I," echoed Claudia.
Then Isobel switched on the light, and I found that my hands were clenched on the right arm of--my brother Michael!
I was more surprised than I can say.
It was only a small matter, of course; a pointless practical joke and a pointless lie, but it was so utterly unlike Michael. It was unlike him to do it, and more unlike him flatly to deny having done it. And my surprise increased when Michael, looking at me queerly, actually remarked:
"So it was me, John, was it? Oh, Feeble Geste!"
I felt absurdly hurt, and turning to Augustus said, "I apologise, Gussie. I admit I thought it was you."
"Oh, don't add insult to injury," he replied. "Put the beastly thing back, and stop being a funny ass. Enough of you is too much."
Put the beastly thing back! I turned and looked at the cushion. It was empty still. I looked at Michael and Michael looked at me.
"Oh, shove it back, Beau," I said. "It's all been most extraordinarily clever and amusing, I'm sure. But I'm inclined to agree with Gussie."
Michael gave me one of his long, thoughtful, penetrating looks. "H'm," said he.
Isobel came over from the door.
"I do think you might have played up, sillies," said she. "Put it back, Beau, and let's have a dance. May we, Aunt?"
"Certainly," said Aunt Patricia, "as soon as ever the great humorist in our midst has received our felicitations," and I really pitied the said humorist, when he should make his avowal, annoyed with him as I felt.
The Chaplain looked from face to face of the six of us and said nothing. Aunt Patricia did the same.
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