Lady Eustace had hardly time to get her slippers from her
feet, and to wrap herself in her dressing-gown, to get rid of her
dishevelled nightcap, and make herself just fit for public view, before
the manager of the hotel, and Lord George, and the tall footman, and the
boots were in her bedroom. It was too plainly manifest to them all that
the diamonds were gone. The superintendent of the Carlisle police was
there almost as soon as the others; and following him very quickly came
the important gentleman who was at the head of the constabulary of the
county.
Lizzie, when she first heard the news, was awe-struck rather than
outwardly demonstrative of grief. "There has been a regular plot," said
Lord George. Captain Fitzmaurice, the gallant chief, nodded his head.
"Plot enough," said the superintendent, who did not mean to confide his
thoughts to any man, or to exempt any human being from his suspicion. The
manager of the hotel was very angry, and at first did not restrain his
anger. Did not everybody know that if articles of value were brought into
a hotel they should be handed over to the safe-keeping of the manager? He
almost seemed to think that Lizzie had stolen her own box of diamonds.
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