Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/84

 "No, madam," Dodson answered reluctantly. There was robbery. Her ladyship's jewelry was taken, I understand; her rings, and a brooch, all her money, and a little gold case she was in the habit of carrying"

"Oh, poor Milly! her vanity box. She always had it dangling from her wrist. I suppose some wretched tramp must have seen it."

"Tramps don't generally have revolvers, madam, that's the queer part; and from what Jennings hears, her ladyship met her death from a revolver shot. They're saying in the village already, it would appear, that there's more than meets the eye."

"Oh, it must have been a tramp!" exclaimed Terry. It was the first time that she had broken out impulsively, since the news came.

"In any case, the police are searching the woods," announced Dodson. "It will go hard if they don't hit on some clue."

"Sir Ian must have gone to look for her, after you left Friars' Moat," said Maud, turning again to Terry, to be once more repelled by the frozen, far-away look which she could not help resenting as selfish.

"Yes," Terry replied, as if mechanically.

"What time did they find out?" Mrs. Ricardo went on.

"I don't know exactly, madam. Between five and