Well, you know yourself that he was out with the ladies when the first robbery took place. As to the others, I don’t remember. Yesterday he was probably in his room, writing. I think that acquits him, eh?” Sir James looked quizzically into the broad face of the affable detective, who smiled and replied:
“Oh, of course nobody can be in two places at once, else what would become of the alibi as an institution? But, as I have said, I am only setting my facts in order. Now, you see, we get down to the servants—unless some stranger is the party wanted. Shall we go outside now?”
Lenton Croft was a large, desultory sort of house, nowhere more than three floors high, and mostly only two. It had been added to bit by bit, till it zigzagged about its site, as Sir James Norris expressed it, “like a game of dominoes.” Hewitt scrutinized its external features carefully as they strolled around, and stopped some little while before the windows of the two bedrooms he had just seen from the inside. Presently they approached the stables and coach-house, where a groom was washing the wheels of the dog-cart.
“Do you mind my smoking?” Hewitt asked Sir James. “Perhaps you will take a cigar yourself—they are not so bad, I think. I will ask your man for a light.”
Sir James felt for his own match-box, but Hewitt had gone, and was lighting his cigar with a match from a box handed him by the groom. A smart little terrier was trotting about by the coach-house, and Hewitt stooped to rub its head. Then he made some observation about the dog, which enlisted the groom’s interest, and was soon absorbed in a chat with the man. Sir James, waiting a little way off, tapped the stones rather impatiently with his foot, and presently moved away.
For full a quarter of an hour Hewitt chatted with the groom, and, when at last he came away and overtook Sir James, that gentleman was about re-entering the house.
“I beg your pardon, Sir James,” Hewitt said, “for leaving you in that unceremonious fashion to talk to your groom, but a dog, Sir James—a good dog—will draw me anywhere.”
“Oh!” replied Sir James, shortly.
“There is one other thing,” Hewitt went on, disregarding the other’s curtness, “that I should like to know: There are two windows directly below that of the room occupied yesterday by Mrs. Cazenove—one on each floor. What rooms do they light?”
“That on the ground floor is the morning-room; the other is Mr. Lloyd’s—my secretary. A sort of study or sitting-room.”
“Now you will see at once, Sir James,” Hewitt pursued, with an affable determination to win the baronet back to good-humor—“you will see at once that, if a ladder had been used in Mrs. Heath’s case, anybody looking from either of these rooms would have seen it.”
“Of course! The Scotland Yard man questioned everybody as to that, but nobody seemed to have been in either of the rooms when the thing occurred; at any rate, nobody saw anything.”
“Still, I think I should like to look out of those windows myself; it will, at least, give me an idea of what was in view and what was not, if anybody had been there.”
Sir James Norris led the way to the morning-room. As they reached the door a young lady, carrying a book and walking very languidly, came out. Hewitt stepped aside to let her pass, and afterward said interrogatively: “Miss Norris, your daughter, Sir James?”
“No, my niece. Do you want to ask her anything? Dora, my dear,” Sir James added, following her in the corridor, “this is Mr. Hewitt, who is investigating these wretched robberies for me. I think he would like to hear if you remember anything happening at any of the three times.”
The lady bowed slightly, and said in a plaintive drawl: “I, uncle? Really, I don’t remember anything; nothing at all.”
“You found Mrs. Armitage’s door locked, I believe,” asked Hewitt, “when you tried it, on the afternoon when she lost her brooch?”
“Oh, yes; I believe it was locked. Yes, it was.”
“Had the key been left in?”
“The key? Oh, no! I think not; no.”
“Do you remember anything out of the common happening—anything whatever, no matter how trivial—on the day Mrs. Heath lost her bracelet?”
“No, really, I don’t. I can’t remember at all.”
“Nor yesterday?”
“No, nothing. I don’t remember anything.”
“Thank you,” said Hewitt, hastily; “thank you. Now the morning-room, Sir James.”
In the morning-room Hewitt stayed but a few seconds, doing little more than casually glance out of the windows. In the room above he took a little longer time. It was a comfortable room, but with rather effeminate indications about its contents. Little pieces of draped silk-work hung about the furniture, and Japanese silk fans decorated the mantel-piece. Near the window was a cage containing a gray parrot, and the writing-table was decorated with two vases of flowers.
“Lloyd makes himself pretty comfortable, eh?” Sir James observed. “But it isn’t likely anybody would be here while he was out, at the time that bracelet went.”
“No,” replied Hewitt, meditatively. “No, I suppose not.”
He stared thoughtfully out of the window, and then, still deep in thought, rattled at the wires of the cage with a quill toothpick and played a moment with the parrot. Then, looking up at the window again, he said: “That is Mr. Lloyd, isn’t it, coming back in a fly?”
“Yes, I think so. Is there anything else you would care to see here?”
“No, thank you,” Hewitt replied; “I don’t think there is.”
They went down to the smoking-room, and Sir James went away to speak to his secretary. When he returned, Hewitt said quietly: “I think, Sir James—I think that I shall be able to give you your thief presently.”
“What! Have you a clue? Who do you think? I began to believe you were hopelessly stumped.”
“Well, yes. I have rather a good clue, although I can’t tell you much about it just yet. But it is so good a clue that I should like to know now whether you are determined to prosecute when you have the criminal?”
“Why, bless me, of course,” Sir James replied, with surprise. “It doesn’t rest with me, you know—the property belongs to my friends. And even if they were disposed to let the thing slide, I shouldn’t allow it—I couldn’t, after they had been robbed in my house.”
“Of course, of course! Then, if I can, I should like to send a message to Twyford by somebody perfectly trustworthy—not a servant. Could anybody go?”
“Well, there’s Lloyd, although he’s only just back from his journey. But, if it’s important, he’ll go.”
“It is important. The fact is we must have a policeman or two here this evening, and I’d like Mr. Lloyd to fetch them without telling anybody else.”
Sir James rang, and, in response to
