“The trunk with your rug over it, on which your portmanteau stood.”

I looked round at Mr, Mrs, and Miss Greene, and saw that they were all looking at me. I looked round at them, and as their eyes met mine I felt that I turned as red as fire. I immediately jumped up and rushed away to my own room, hearing as I went that all their steps were following me. I rushed to the inner recess, pulled down the portmanteau, which still remained in its old place, tore away my own carpet rug which covered the support beneath it, and there saw—a white canvas-covered box, with a hole in the canvas on the next side to me!

“It is my box,” said Mrs Greene, pushing me away, as she hurried up and put her finger within the rent.

“It certainly does look like it,” said Mr Greene, peering over his wife’s shoulder.

“There’s no doubt about the box,” said Sophonisba.

“Not the least in life,” said I, trying to assume an indifferent look.

“Mon Dieu!” said the Boots.

“Corpo di Baccho!” exclaimed the landlord, who had now joined the party.

“Oh-h-h-h—!” screamed Mrs Greene, and then she threw herself back on to my bed, and shrieked hysterically.

There was no doubt whatsoever about the fact. There was the lost box, and there it had been during all those tedious hours of unavailing search. While I was suffering all that fatigue in Milan, spending my precious Zwanzigers in driving about from one hotel to another, the box had been safe, standing in my own room at Bellaggio, hidden by my own rug. And now that it was found everybody looked at me as though it were all my fault. Mrs Greene’s eyes, when she had done being hysterical, were terrible, and Sophonisba looked at me as though I were a convicted thief.

“Who put the box here?” I said, turning fiercely upon the Boots.

“I did,” said the Boots, “by Monsieur’s express order.”

“By my order?” I exclaimed.

“Certainly,” said the Boots.

“Corpo di Baccho!” said the landlord, and he also looked at me as though I were a thief. In the meantime the landlady and the three daughters had clustered round Mrs Greene, administering to her all manner of Italian consolation. The box, and the money, and the jewels were after all a reality, and much incivility can be forgiven to a lady who has really lost here jewels, and has really found them again.

There and then there arose a hurly-burly among us as to the manner in which the odious trunk found its way into my room. Had anybody been just enough to consider the matter coolly, it must have been quite clear that I could not have ordered it there. When I entered the hotel, the boxes were already being lugged about, and I had spoken a word to no one concerning them. That traitorous Boots had done it,—no doubt without malice prepense; but he had done it; and now that the Greenes were once more known as moneyed people, he turned upon me, and told me to my face that I had desired that box to be taken to my own room as part of my own luggage!

“My dear,” said Mr Greene, turning to his wife, “you should never mention the contents of your luggage to anyone.”

“I never will again,” said Mrs Greene, with a mock repentant air, “but I really thought—”