replied Thorndyke, “is a rather difficult question to answer. But as all my information as to what has occurred here is second-or third-hand, I thought it best to see the place myself and make a few inquiries on the spot. That is my routine practice.”
“Ah, I see,” said Woodstock. “Your visit is just a matter of form, a demonstration of activity. Well, I am sorry I can’t be present at the ceremony. My colleague and I have an engagement elsewhere; but my office-keeper, Mr. Wampole, will be able to tell you anything that you may wish to know and show you all there is to see excepting the strong-room. If you want to see that, as I suppose you do, I had better show it to you now, as I must take the key away with me.”
He led the way along the narrow hall, half-way down which he opened a door inscribed ‘Clerks’ Office,’ and entered a large room, now unoccupied save by an elderly man who sat at a table with the parts of a dismembered electric bell spread out before him. Through this Mr. Woodstock passed into a somewhat smaller room furnished with a large writing-table, one or two nests of deed-boxes, and a set of book-shelves. Nearly opposite the table was the massive door of the strong-room, standing wide open with the key in the lock.
“This is my private office,” said Mr. Woodstock, “and here is the strong-room. Perhaps you would like to step inside. I am rather proud of this room. You don’t often see one of this size. And it is absolutely fire-proof; thick steel lining, concrete outside that, and then brick. It is practically indestructible. Those confounded boxes occupied that long upper shelf.”
Thorndyke did not appear to be specially interested in the strong-room. He walked in, looked round at the steel walls with their ranks of steel shelves, loaded with bundles of documents, and then walked out.
“Yes,” he said, “it is a fine room, as strong and secure as one could wish; though, of course, its security has no bearing on our case, since it must have been entered either with its own key or a duplicate. May I look at the key?”
Mr. Woodstock withdrew it from the lock and handed it to him without comment, watching him with undisguised impatience as he turned it over and examined its blade.
“Not a difficult type of key to duplicate,” he remarked as he handed it back, “though these wardless pin-keys are more subtle than they look.”
“I suppose they are,” Woodstock assented indifferently. “But really, these investigations appear to me rather pointless, seeing that the identity of the thief is known. And now I must be off; but first let me introduce you to my deputy, Mr. Wampole.”
He led the way back to the clerks’ office, where his subordinate was busily engaged in assembling the parts of the bell.
“This is Dr. Thorndyke, Wampole, who has come with his assistant, Mr.—er—Bolton, to inspect the premises and make a few inquiries. You can show him anything that he wants to see and give him all the assistance that you can in the way of answering questions. And,” concluded Mr. Woodstock, shaking hands stiffly with Thorndyke, “I wish you a successful issue to your labours.”
As Mr. Woodstock and his colleague departed, closing the outer door after them, Mr. Wampole laid down his screw-driver and looked at Thorndyke with a slightly puzzled expression.
“I don’t quite understand, sir, what you want to do,” said he, “or what sort of inspection you want to make; but I am entirely at your service, if you will kindly instruct me. What would you like me to show you first?”
“I don’t think we need interrupt your work just at present, Mr. Wampole. The first thing to be done is to make a rough plan of the premises, and while my assistant is doing that, perhaps I might ask you a few questions if it will not distract you too much.”
“It will not distract me at all,” Mr. Wampole replied, picking up his screw-driver. “I am accustomed to doing odd jobs about the office—I am the handy man of the establishment—and I am not easily put out of my stride.”
Evidently he was not; for even as he was speaking his fingers were busy in a neat, purposive way that showed clearly that his attention was not wandering from his task. Thorndyke watched him curiously, not quite able to ‘place’ him. His hands were the skilful, capable hands of a mechanic, and this agreed with Woodstock’s description of him and his own. But his speech was that of a passably educated man and his manner was quite dignified and self-possessed.
“By the way,” said Thorndyke, “Mr. Woodstock referred to you as the office-keeper. Does that mean that you are the custodian of the premises?”
“Nominally,” replied Wampole. “I am a law-writer by profession; but when I first came here, some twenty years ago, I came as a caretaker and used to live upstairs. But for many years past the upstairs rooms have been used for storage—obsolete books, documents, and all sorts of accumulations. Nobody lives in the house now. We lock the place up when we go away at night. As for me, I am, as I said, the handy man of the establishment. I do whatever comes along—copy letters, engross leases, keep an eye on the state of the premises, and so on.”
“I see. Then you probably know as much of the affairs of this office as anybody.”
“Probably, sir. I am the oldest member of the staff, and I am usually the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night. I expect I can tell you anything that you want to know.”
“Then I will ask you one or two questions, if I may. You probably know that my visit here is connected with the robbery of Mr. Hollis’s gems?”
“The alleged robbery,” Mr. Wampole corrected. “Yes, sir. Mr. Woodstock told me that.”
“You appear to be somewhat doubtful about the robbery.”
“I am not doubtful at all,” Wampole replied in a tone of great decision. “I am convinced that the whole thing is a mare’s nest. The gems may have been stolen. I suppose they were as Mr. Hollis says they were. But they weren’t stolen from here.”
“You put complete trust in the strong-room?”
“Oh no, I don’t, sir. This is a solicitor’s strong-room, not a banker’s. It is secure against fire, not against robbery. It was designed for the custody of things such as documents, of great value to their owners but of no value to a thief. It was no proper receptacle for jewels. They should have gone to a bank.”
“Do I understand, then, that unauthorized persons might have obtained access to the strong-room?”
“They might, during business hours. Mr. Woodstock unlocks it when he arrives and it is usually open all day; or if it is shut, the key is left hanging on the wall. But it has never been taken seriously as a bank strong-room is. Mr. Hepburn and Mr. Osmond kept their cricket-bags and other things in it, and we have all been in the habit of putting things in there if we were leaving them here over-night.”
“Then, really, any member of the staff had the opportunity to make away with Mr. Hollis’s property?”
“I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that,” replied Wampole, with somewhat belated caution. “Any of us could have gone into the strong-room; but not without being seen by some of the others. Still, one must admit that a robbery might have been possible; the point is that it didn’t happen. I checked those boxes when I helped to put them in, and I checked them when we took them out. They were all there in their original wrappings with Mr. Hollis’s handwriting on them and all the seals intact. It is nonsense to talk of a robbery in the face of those facts.”
