For a moment nothing was heard but an indescribable gasp and a sudden turning and searching, then suddenly Cheever’s deep bass broke out: 

“Stolen!  But, Mrs. Kildair, is it possible?”

“Exactly.  There is not the slightest doubt,” said Mrs. Kildair.  “Three of you were in my bedroom when I placed my rings on the pincushion.  Each of you has passed through there a dozen times since.  My sapphire ring is gone, and one of you has taken it.”

Mrs. Jackson gave a little scream, and reached heavily for a glass of water.  Mrs. Cheever said something inarticulate in the outburst of masculine exclamation.  Only Maude Lille’s calm voice could be heard saying: 

“Quite true.  I was in the room when you took them off.  The sapphire ring was on top.”

“Now listen!” said Mrs. Kildair, her eyes on Maude Lille’s eyes.  “I am not going to mince words.  I am not going to stand on ceremony.  I’m going to have that ring back.  Listen to me carefully.  I’m going to have that ring back, and until I do, not a soul shall leave this room.”  She tapped on the table with her nervous knuckles.  “Who has taken it I do not care to know.  All I want is my ring.  Now I’m going to make it possible for whoever took it to restore it without possibility of detection.  The doors are locked and will stay locked.  I am going to put out the lights, and I am going to count one hundred slowly.  You will be in absolute darkness; no one will know or see what is done.  But if at the end of that time the ring is not here on this table I shall telephone the police and have every one in this room searched.  Am I quite clear?”

Suddenly she cut short the nervous outbreak of suggestions and in the same firm voice continued: 

“Every one take his place about the table.  That’s it.  That will do.”

The women, with the exception of the inscrutable Maude Lille, gazed hysterically from face to face while the men, compressing their fingers, locking them or grasping their chins, looked straight ahead fixedly at their hostess.

Mrs. Kildair, having calmly assured herself that all were ranged as she wished, blew out two of the three candles.

“I shall count one hundred, no more, no less,” she said.  “Either I get back that ring or every one in this room is to be searched, remember.”

Leaning over, she blew out the remaining candle and snuffed it.

“One, two, three, four, five—­”

She began to count with the inexorable regularity of a clock’s ticking.

In the room every sound was distinct, the rustle of a dress, the grinding of a shoe, the deep, slightly asthmatic breathing of a man.

“Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—­”

She continued to count, while in the methodic unvarying note of her voice there was a rasping reiteration that began to affect the company.  A slight gasping breath, uncontrollable, almost on the verge of hysterics, was heard, and a man nervously clearing his throat.