The Argosy — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Diamond Bracelet. | 65 “Tt won’t be my fault if she is,” retorted the colonel, taking the mplied reproach to himself. ‘‘ The loss of a diamond bracelet, worth two or three hundred guineas, is not to be hushed up. They are not to be bought every day, Lady Sarah.” The officer was taken to the room whence the bracelet disappeared. It presented nothing peculiar. It was a back drawing-room, the folding-doors between it and the front room standing open, the back window, a large one, looking out upon some flat leads. The officer seemed to take in the points of the double room at a glance: its folding-doors of communication, its two doors opening to the corridor outside, and its windows. He examined the latches of the two entrance doors, and he looked next from the front windows, and then from the one at the back. From the front windows ordinary ingress was impos- sible ; it was nearly as much so from the back one. The officer leaned out for some time, but could make nothing of acase. The window was shut in by a balcony that just encircled it. Below, two stories down, were the leads of the kitchers. The house was one of a row of houses, or terrace, and they all bore the same features: the leads running along below; the confining balconies to the windows on this floor above. But the windows could not be gained from the leads except by means of a Jadder; and the balconies were not near each other. ‘‘ Nothing to be suspected there,” concluded the officer, bringing in his head and shoulders. ‘‘I should like, if you please, ma’am, to see Miss Seaton.” | Lady Sarah went for her, and brought her. A delicate girl with a transparent skin, looking almost too weak to walk. She was in a visible tremor, and shook as she stood before the police officer: whose name, it turned out, was Pullet. But he was a man of pleasant manners and speech, and he hastened to reassure her. ‘‘ There’s nothing to be afraid of, young lady,” said he with a broad smile. ‘‘ We are not ogres: though I do believe some timid folks look upon us as such. Just please to compose yourself, and tell me as much as you can recollect of this.” “T laid out the bracelets here,” began Alice Seaton, putting her hands on the table underneath the window, not more to indicate it than to steady herself, for she was almost incapable of standing. ‘“ The diamond bracelet, the one lost, I placed just here,” she added, touching - the middle of the table at the back, “and the rest I put around it.” “Tt was worth more than any of the others, I believe, ma’am.” ~“ Much more,” growled the colonel. The officer nodded to himself, and Alice resumed. “I left the bracelets, and went into the other room and sat down at cne of the front windows 7, ‘‘ With the intervening doors open, I presume.” , “ Wide open; as they are now,’ said Alice. ‘“ The other two doors VOL XVIII. F GOMILGD OO <S Go mn