"Now stop this fooling," said she. "Unless the 'Blue Water' is produced at once, I shall be very seriously annoyed."
"Come on, somebody," said Digby.
Another minute's silence.
It began to grow unbearable.
"I am waiting," said Lady Brandon at last, and her foot began to tap.
From that moment the matter became anything but a joke, swiftly growing unpleasant and increasingly so.
§3.
I shall not forget the succeeding hours in a hurry, and their horrible atmosphere of suspicion--seven people suspecting one of the other seven, and the eighth person pretending to do so.
My capable and incisive aunt quickly brought things to a clear issue, upon getting no reply to her "I am waiting," and her deliberate look from face to face of the angry and uncomfortable group around her.
"Maurice," said she to the Chaplain, laying her hand upon his sleeve, her face softening and sweetening incredibly, "come and sit by me until I have asked each of these young people a question. Then I want you to go to bed, for it's getting late," and she led him to a big and deep chesterfield that stood on a low dais in a big window recess.
Seating herself with the air and presence of a queen on a throne, she said, quietly and very coldly:
"This is getting serious, and unless it ends at once, the consequences will be serious too. For the last time I ask the boy, or girl, who moved the 'Blue Water,' to give it to me and we will end the silly business now and here, and make no further reference to it. If not . . . Come, this is absurd and ridiculous. . . ."
"Oh, come off it, John," said Augustus, "for God's sake."
Nobody else spoke.
"Very well," said my aunt, "since the fool won't leave his folly. . . . Come here, Claudia. . . . Have you touched the 'Blue Water' since the Chaplain restored it to its place?" She laid her hand on Claudia's arm, drew her close, and looked into her eyes.
"No, Aunt. . . ."
"No, Aunt," said Claudia again.
"Of course not," said Aunt Patricia. "Go to bed, dear. Good night."
And Claudia departed, not without an indignant glance at me.
"Come here, Isobel," continued my aunt. "Have you touched the 'Blue Water' since the Chaplain put it back in its place?"
"No, Aunt, I have not," replied Isobel.
"I am sure you have not. Go to bed. Good night," said Lady Brandon.
Isobel turned to go and then stopped.
"But I might have done, Aunt, if the idea had occurred to me," she said. "It is just a joke, of course."
"Bed," rejoined her aunt, and Isobel departed with a kind glance at me.
Aunt Patricia turned to Augustus.
"Come here," she said coldly, and with a hard stare into his somewhat shifty eyes. "Please answer absolutely truthfully--for your own sake. If you have got the 'Blue Water,' and give it to me now, I shall not say another word about the matter. Have you?"
"I swear to God, Aunt . . ." broke out Augustus.
"You need not swear to God, nor to me, Augustus," was the cold reply. "Yes or No. Have you got it?"
"No, Aunt! I take my solemn oath I . . ." the unhappy youth replied vehemently, when the cold voice interrupted:
"Have you touched the sapphire since the Chaplain put it under its cover?"
"No, Aunt. Really, I haven't! I assure you I . . ." began Augustus, to be again interrupted by the cold question:
"Do you know where the 'Blue Water' is now?"
"No, Aunt," promptly replied he, "upon my soul I don't. If I did, I'd jolly well . . ."
"John," said my aunt, without further notice of Augustus, "do you know where the stone is?"
"No, Aunt," I replied, and added, "nor have I touched it since the Chaplain did."
She favoured me with a long, long look, which I was able to meet quite calmly, and I hope not at all rudely. As I looked away, my eyes met Michael's. He was watching me queerly.
Then came Digby's turn. He said quite simply and plainly that he knew nothing about the jewel's disappearance and had not touched it since it was passed to him by Claudia, and handed on by him to Isobel.
There remained Michael. He was the culprit, or else one of us had told a most deliberate, calculated, and circumstantial lie, inexcusable and disgraceful.
I felt angrier with Michael than I had ever done in my life, yet I was angry rather for him than with him. It was so utterly unlike him to do such a stupid thing, and to allow all this unpleasant and undignified inquisition to go on, when a word from him would have ended it.
Why must my idol act as though he had feet of clay--or, at any rate, smear clay upon his feet? The joke was unworthy, but the lie was really painfully so.
I have no objection to the good thumping lie that is "a very present help in time of trouble," told at the right time and in the right cause (such as to save the other fellow's bacon). But I have the strongest distaste for a silly lie that merely gives annoyance to other people, and puts blame upon an innocent person.
From the moment I had caught him in the act of trying to return the jewel secretly, I had felt sick with indignation, and literally and physically sick when, his effort frustrated by me, he had pretended innocence and held on for another opportunity of returning the thing unseen.
Had I not myself caught him in the very act, he was, of all of us, the last person whom I should have suspected. He and Isobel, that is to say. I should have strongly suspected Augustus, and, his innocence established, I should have supposed that Digby had fallen a victim to his incurable love of joking--though I should have been greatly surprised.
Had Digby then been proved innocent, I am afraid I should have suspected Claudia of wishing to turn the limelight on herself by an innocently naughty escapade--before I should ever have entertained the idea of Michael doing it and denying it.
Now that all had firmly and categorically declared their absolute innocence and ignorance in the matter, I had no option (especially in view of my catching him at the spot) but to conclude that Michael had been what I had never known him to be before--a fool, a cad, and a liar.
I could have struck him for hurting himself so.
"Michael," said Aunt Patricia very gravely, very coldly, and very sadly, "I'm sorry. More so than I can tell you, Michael. Please put the 'Blue Water' back, and I will say no more. But I doubt whether I shall feel like calling you 'Beau' for some time."
"I can't put it back, Aunt, for I haven't got it," said Michael quietly, and my heart bounded.
"Do you know where it is, Michael?" asked my aunt.
"I do not, Aunt," was the immediate reply.
"Have you touched the sapphire since the Chaplain did, Michael?" was the next question.
"I have not, Aunt," was the quiet answer.
"Do you know anything about its disappearance, Michael?" asked the hard level voice.
"I only know that I have had nothing whatever to do with its disappearance, Aunt," answered my brother, and I was aghast.
"Do you declare that all you have just said is the absolute truth, Michael?" was the final question.
"I declare it to be the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," was the final answer.
§4.
What was I to think? Certainly I could not think that Michael was lying. Equally certainly I could not forget that I had