But the undiscovered piqued and puzzled him and aroused
his combative egotism.
From the pictured face of Freeman--dark, stern, uncommunicative--he
trotted back to the drawing room to look again at the boyish face of
little Richard leaning against his pretty mother's knees; at the
haughty, handsome face of James Hampden; and at beautiful dark
Jessamine, who had a long black curl straying across the shoulder of
a blue frock, and a curled red lip, and a breast of snow.
"Freeman was not a crook; his face is hard, stern, bigoted,
secretive, but honest. Yet if he didn't do it himself what was he
trying to tell when death cut off his wind? If he did it, where did
he hide the plunder? Here in this house? His family must have known
every nook and cranny as well as he did himself, and he could be
sure they'd pull it to pieces in the search that would ensue.
"If Richard were the thief, to whom did he give the loot? If the
gems had been put upon the market, some trace of them must have been
discovered. Remains: Who got them? Where did they go?"
"That's what the unhappy people in this house asked a century ago,
and there was no answer," I remarked, soberly.
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