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The waitress left the room, and Thaddeus turned to his desk. It was plain from his appearance that light was beginning to be let in on places that up to this point had been more or less dark to him, although, as a matter of fact, he could not in any way account for the mystery of the vanished plates any more than he could for the sweeping of the library in the still hours of the night. He had an idea as to who the culprit was, and what that idea was is plain enough to us, but the question of motive was the great puzzle to him now.

“If she did take them, why should she?” was the problem he was trying to solve; and then, as if his trials were not already great enough for one day, Bessie broke excitedly into the room.

“Thaddeus!” she cried, “there’s something wrong in this house; my best table-cloth is missing, our dessert-spoons are gone, and what do you suppose has happened?”

“I don’t know–a volcano has developed in the cellar, I suppose,” said Thaddeus.

“No,” said Bessie, “it isn’t as bad as that; but the ice-cream man has telephoned up to know whether we want the cream for dinner or for eleven o’clock, according to the order as he understands it.”

“Well,” said Thaddeus, “I don’t see anything very unusual in an ice- cream man’s needing to be told three or four times what is expected of him.”

“But I never ordered any cream at all,” said Bessie.

“Ah,” said Thaddeus, “that’s different. Did you tell Partinelli so?”

“I did, and he said he was sure he wasn’t mistaken, because he had taken the order himself.”

“From you?”

“No, from Margaret.”

“Then it’s all right,” said Thaddeus; “it’s a clew that fits very nicely into my theory of our recent household disturbances. If you will wait, I think things will begin to develop very shortly, and then we shall be able to dismiss this indictment against the cat we thought we heard last night.”

“Do you think Margaret is dishonest?”

“I don’t know,” said Thaddeus. “I shouldn’t be surprised if she had friends with taking ways; in other words, my dear, I suspect that Margaret is in league with people outside of this house who profit by her mistaken notions as to how to be generous; but I can’t prove it yet.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“Set a watch. I have sent for a detective,” said Thaddeus.

This was too much for Bessie. She was simply overcome, and she sat squarely down upon the arm-chair, which fortunately was immediately behind her. I think that if it had not been, she would have plumped down upon the floor.

“Detective!” she gasped.

“Exactly,” said Thaddeus, “and here he comes,” he added, as a carriage was driven up to the door and one of the citizen police descended therefrom.

“You would better leave us to talk over this matter together,” said Thaddeus, as he hastened to the door. “We shall be able to manage it entirely, and the details might make you nervous.”

“I couldn’t be more nervous than I am,” said Bessie; “but I’ll leave you just the same.”

Whereupon she went to her room, and Thaddeus, for an hour, was closeted with the detective, to which he detailed the whole story.

“It’s one of the two,” said the latter, when Thaddeus had finished, “and I agree with you it is more likely to be the cook than the waitress. If it was the waitress, she couldn’t have stood your examination as well as you say she did. Perhaps I’d better see her, though, and talk to her myself.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Thaddeus “we’ll pass you off as a business acquaintance of mine up from town, and you can stay all night and watch developments.”

So it was arranged. The detective was introduced into the family as a correspondent of Thaddeus’s firm, and he settled down to watch the household. Afternoon and evening went by without developments, and at about eleven o’clock every light in the house was extinguished, and the whole family, from the head of the house to the cook, had apparently retired.