This last was merely done as a matter of form, and to let the indignant servant see that no partiality was shown, the polite officers explained to Arthur, who at first refused to let them in, but who finally opened the door himself, and bade them go where they liked.
Half hidden among the cushions of the sofa from which Arthur had arisen when he let the officers in and to which he returned again, was Jerry, her face pale to her lips and her eyes like the eyes of some haunted animal, when she saw the policemen cross the threshold.
After her return home the previous day she had been unusually taciturn and had taken no part in the conversation relative to the missing diamonds, but just before going to bed she said to Harold: 'What will they do with the one who took the diamonds, if they find him ?' 'Send him to state prison,' Harold answered.
'And what do they do to them in state prison ?' Jerry continued.
'Cut their hair off; make them eat bread and water and mush, and sleep on a board, and work awful hard,' was Harold's reply, given at random and without the least suspicion why the question had been asked.
Jerry said no more, but the next morning she started for the park house, which she knew was to be searched, and going to Mr.Arthur's room looked him wistfully in the face as she asked in a whisper: 'Are they found ?' 'Found! What found ?' he said, as if all recollection of the missing jewels had passed entirely from his mind.
'The diamonds; Mrs.Tracy's diamonds; the ones you gave her,' was Jerry's answer.
For a moment, Arthur looked perplexed and bewildered and confused, and seemed trying to recall something which would not come at his bidding.
'I don't know anything about it,' he said at last.

'I don't seem to think of anything, my head is so thick with all the noise there was here yesterday and the tumult this morning.

Search-warrants, Charles says, and two strange men driving up so early.

Who are they, Jerry ?' 'Police, come to search the house; search everybody and everything.
Ain't you afraid ?' Jerry said.
'Afraid?
No: why should I be afraid?
Why, child, how white you are, and what makes you tremble so?
You didn't take the diamonds,' was Arthur's response, as he drew the little girl close to him and looked into her pallid face.
'Mr.Arthur,' Jerry began, very low, as if afraid of being heard, 'if I should give Maude something for her very own, and she should accept and keep it a good while, and then some day I should take it from her, when she did not know it, and hide it, and not give it up, would that be stealing ?' 'Certainly.

Why do you ask ?' Jerry did not say why she asked, but put the same question to him she had put to Harold: 'If they find the one who took the diamonds will they send him to state prison ?' 'Undoubtedly.