I did not go to sleep at once.  I lay on the chintz-covered divan in Bella’s dressing room and stared at the picture of her with the violets underneath.  I couldn’t see what there was about Bella to inspire such undying devotion, but I had to admit that she had looked handsome that night, and that the Harbison man had certainly been impressed.

At seven o’clock Jimmy Wilson pounded at my door, and I could have choked him joyfully.  I dragged myself to the door and opened it, and then I heard excited voices.  Everybody seemed to be up but Aunt Selina, and they were all talking at once.

Anne Brown was in the corner of the group, waving her hands, while Dallas was trying to hook the back of her gown with one hand and hold a blanket around himself with the other.  No one was dressed except Anne, and she had been up for an hour, looking in shoes and under the corners of rugs and around the bed clothing for her jeweled collar.  When she saw me she began all over again.

“I had it on when I went into my room,” she declared, “and I put it on the dressing table when I undressed.  I meant to put it under my pillow, but I forgot.  And I didn’t sleep well; I was awake half the night.  Wasn’t I, Dal?  Then, when the clock downstairs in the hall was chiming five, something roused me, and I sat up in bed.  It was still dark, but I pinched Dal and said there was somebody in the room.  You remember that, don’t you, Dal?”

“I thought you had nightmare,” he said sheepishly.

“I lay still for ages, it seemed to me, and then—­the door into the hall closed.  I heard the catch click.  I turned on the light over the bed then, and the room was empty.  I thought of my collar, and although it seemed ridiculous, with the house sealed as it is, and all of us friends for years—­well, I got up and looked, and it was gone!”

No one spoke for an instant.  It was a queer situation, for the collar was gone; Anne’s red eyes showed it was true.  And there we stood, every one of us a miserable picture of guilt, and tried to look innocent and debonair and unsuspicious.  Finally Jim held up his hand and signified that he wanted to say something.

“It’s like this,” he said, “until this thing is cleared up, for Heaven’s sake, let’s try to be sane!  If every fellow thinks the other fellow did it, this house will be a nice little hell to live in.  And if anybody”—­here he glared around—­“if anybody has got funny and is hiding those jewels, I want to say that he’d better speak up now.  Later, it won’t be so easy for him.  It’s a mighty poor joke.”

But nobody spoke.

Chapter VII.  WE MAKE AN OMELET

It was Betty Mercer who said she was hungry, and got us switched from the delicate subject of which was the thief to the quite as pressing subject of which was to be cook.  Aunt Selina had slept quietly through the whole thing—­we learned afterward that she customarily slept on her left side, which was on her good ear.  We gathered in the Dallas Browns’ room, and Jimmy proposed a plan.