had
returned without letting her know.

Left alone, Crane decided to give his friend his long-desired chance.

"Well, Tuck," he said, "you look in fine form. What have you been doing
since I went away?"

"I have not had a very agreeable day," said Tucker, in a voice so low
and deep that it was almost a growl.

"No? Not a return of your old dyspepsia, I hope," said Crane.

Tucker shook his head impatiently.

"At breakfast," he said, "I heard from Mrs. Falkener, who had heard from
her daughter, that you had observed the loss of the miniature that used
to lie on this table. Such things cannot be taken lightly, Burton. The
owners might put almost any price on an article of that kind--wretched
as it was, as a work of art--and you would be forced to pay. You see, it
could not be replaced. I thought it my duty, therefore, to send for each
of the servants and question them on the subject."

"You thought it your duty to send for Jane-Ellen, Tuck?"

Again Tucker frowned.

"I said I sent for all of the servants. Smithfield displayed, to my
mind, a most suspicious ignorance and indifference to the whole subject.
The housemaid was so hysterical and frightened that if I did not know a
great deal of such cases, I should suspect her--"

"And was the cook frightened?" said Crane, with a flicker of a smile.

"No," Tucker explained, "she did not appear to be frightened, but then,
I may tell you that I do not suspect the cook of complicity in the
theft."

"The deuce you don't!" said Crane. He found himself suddenly annoyed
without reason, that Tucker should have been interviewing and
questioning his servants during his absence; stirring up trouble, he
said to himself, and perhaps hurting the feelings of a perfectly good
cook. Suppose she had decided to leave as a result of these activities
of Solon's! He found he had not been listening to the account his friend
was giving of the conversation, until he heard him say:

"It seems Jane-Ellen had never been in this room before; she was very
much interested in everything. I saw her looking at that splendid
portrait of General Revelly, and she asked--in fact, she made me give
her quite a little account of his life--"

"A little lecture on the Civil War, eh?" said Crane.

His tone was not wholly friendly and Tucker did not find it so. He
colored.

"Really, Burton," he said, coldly, "in case of crime, or of theft, a
man's lawyer is usually supposed to know what it is best to do.