THE YELLOW DOVE
pulled out and their contents scattered about on the floor.
“When did—did it happen?” she asked timorously, more because she had to say something than because that was what she wanted to know.
“Some time before dawn,” said her father. “Wilson was here until three thinking that you might want her and then went out to her own room in the wing.”
“Yes, I remember,” said the girl, passing her hand across her eyes. “I wasn’t feeling very well—so I asked her to stay here for a while. But I can’t understand why I didn’t wake.”
“That’s what frightened us,” Cousin Tom broke in. “We were afraid the snoozers might have got in to you”
“It’s lucky you had your door locked.”
“They were at my library desk, too,” she heard her father saying. “Must have gone down the hall from here. But so far as I can see, they didn’t get anything.”
Her Aunt Sophia gasped a sigh.
“Thank the Lord,” she put in reverently. “At least we’re all safe and sound.”
Stunned at the daring of Rizzio’s men and bewildered by the persistence with which they had followed their quest while she was sleeping, Doris managed to formulate a quick plan to hide the meaning of this intrusion from the members of her family.
She had been examining the disordered contents of the upper drawers of a bureau.
“My jewel case, fortunately, I keep in my bedroom,” she said, “but there was an emerald brooch to be repaired which I put in this drawer yesterday. It’s gone.”
56
