by all means. I think I’ll come back with you. Somehow, I don’t like to feel idle in the matter, though I suppose I can’t do much. As to more information, I don’t think there is any.”
“In regard to Mr. Claridge’s assistant, now: Do you know anything of him?”
“Only that he has always seemed a very civil and decent sort of man. Honest, I should say, or Claridge wouldn’t have kept him so many years—there are a good many valuable things about at Claridge’s. Besides, the man has keys of the place himself, and, even if he were a thief, he wouldn’t need to go breaking in through the roof.”
“So that,” said Hewitt, “we have, directly connected with this cameo, besides yourself, these people: Mr. Claridge, the dealer; Mr. Cutler, the assistant in Mr. Claridge’s business; Hahn, who sold the article to Claridge, and Mr. Woollett, who made bids for it. These are all?”
“All that I know of. Other gentlemen made bids, I believe, but I don’t know them.”
“Take these people in their order. Mr. Claridge is out of the question, as a dealer with a reputation to keep up would be, even if he hadn’t immediately sent you this five thousand pounds—more than the market value, I understand, of the cameo. The assistant is a reputable man, against whom nothing is known, who would never need to break in, and who must understand his business well enough to know that he could never attempt to sell the missing stone without instant detection. Hahn is a man of shady antecedents, probably clever enough to know as well as anybody how to dispose of such plunder—if it be possible to dispose of it at all; also, Hahn hasn’t been to Claridge’s to-day, although he had an appointment to take money. Lastly, Mr. Woollett is a gentleman of the most honorable record, but a perfectly rabid collector, who had made every effort to secure the cameo before you bought it; who, moreover, could have seen Mr. Claridge working in his back room, and who has perfectly easy access to Mr. Claridge’s roof. If we find it can’t be none of these, then we must look where circumstances indicate.”
There was unwonted excitement at Mr. Claridge’s place when Hewitt and his client arrived. It was a dull old building, and in the windows there was never more show than an odd blue china vase or two, or, mayhap, a few old silver shoe-buckles and a curious small sword. Nine men out of ten would have passed it without a glance; but the tenth at least would probably know it for a place famous through the world for the number and value of the old and curious objects of art that had passed through it.
On this day two or three loiterers, having heard of the robbery, extracted what gratification they might from staring at nothing between the railings guarding the windows. Within, Mr. Claridge, a brisk, stout, little old man, was talking earnestly to a burly police-inspector in uniform, and Mr. Cutler, who had seized the opportunity to attempt amateur detective work on his own account, was groveling perseveringly about the floor, among old porcelain and loose pieces of armor, in the futile hope of finding any clue that the thieves might have considerately dropped.
Mr. Claridge came forward eagerly.
“The leather case has been found, I am pleased to be able to tell you, Lord Stanway, since you left.”
“Empty, of course?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It had evidently been thrown away by the thief behind a chimney-stack a roof or two away, where the police have found it. But it is a clue, of course.”
“Ah, then this gentleman will give me his opinion of it,” Lord Stanway said, turning to Hewitt. “This, Mr. Claridge, is Mr. Martin Hewitt, who has been kind enough to come with me here at a moment’s notice. With the police on the one hand and Mr. Hewitt on the other we shall certainly recover that cameo, if it is to be recovered, I think.”
Mr. Claridge bowed, and beamed on Hewitt through his spectacles. “I’m very glad Mr. Hewitt has come,” he said. “Indeed, I had already decided to give the police till this time to-morrow, and then, if they had found nothing, to call in Mr. Hewitt myself.”
Hewitt bowed in his turn, and then asked: “Will you let me see the various breakages? I hope they have not been disturbed.”
“Nothing whatever has been disturbed. Do exactly as seems best. I need scarcely say that everything here is perfectly at your disposal. You know all the circumstances, of course?”
“In general, yes. I suppose I am right in the belief that you have no resident housekeeper?”
“No,” Claridge replied, “I haven’t. I had one housekeeper who sometimes pawned my property in the evening, and then another who used to break my most valuable china, till I could never sleep or take a moment’s ease at home for fear my stock was being ruined here. So I gave up resident housekeepers. I felt some confidence in doing it because of the policeman who is always on duty opposite.”
“Can I see the broken desk?”
Mr. Claridge led the way into the room behind the shop. The desk was really a sort of work-table, with a lifting top and a lock. The top had been forced roughly open by some instrument which had been pushed in below it and used as a lever, so that the catch of the lock was torn away. Hewitt examined the damaged parts and the marks of the lever, and then looked out at the back window.
“There are several windows about here,” he remarked, “from which it might be possible to see into this room. Do you know any of the people who live behind them?”
“Two or three I know,” Mr. Claridge answered, “but there are two windows—the pair almost immediately before us—belonging to a room or office which is to let. Any stranger might get in there and watch.”
“Do the roofs above any of those windows communicate in any way with yours?”
“None of those directly opposite. Those at the left do; you may walk all the way along the leads.”
“And whose windows are they?”
Mr. Claridge hesitated. “Well,” he said, “they’re Mr. Woollett’s, an excellent customer of mine. But he’s a gentleman, and—well, I really think it’s absurd to suspect him.”
“In a case like this,” Hewitt answered, “one must disregard nothing but the impossible. Somebody—whether Mr. Woollett himself or another person—could possibly have seen into this room from those windows, and equally possibly could have reached this room from that one. Therefore we must not forget Mr. Woollett. Have any of your neighbors been burgled during the night? I mean that strangers anxious to get at your trap-door would probably have to begin by getting into some other house close by, so as to reach your roof.”
“No,” Mr. Claridge replied; “there has been nothing of that sort. It was the first thing the police ascertained.”
Hewitt examined the broken door and then made his way up the stairs with the others. The unscrewed lock of the door of the top back-room required little examination. In the room below the trap-door was a dusty table on which stood a chair, and at the other side of the table sat Detective-Inspector Plummer, whom Hewitt knew very well, and who bade him “good-day” and then went on with his docket.
“This chair and table were found as they are now, I take it?” Hewitt asked.
“Yes,” said Mr. Claridge; “the thieves, I should think, dropped in through the trap-door, after breaking it open, and had to place this chair where it is to be able to climb back.”
