CHAPTER V
A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE
"Now I must tell you," continued the man in the corner, "that after Ihad read the account of the double robbery, which appeared in the earlyafternoon papers, I set to work and had a good think--yes!" he addedwith a smile, noting Polly's look at the bit of string, on which he wasstill at work, "yes! aided by this small adjunct to continued thought--Imade notes as to how I should proceed to discover the clever thief, whohad carried off a small fortune in a single night. Of course, my methodsare not those of a London detective; he has his own way of going towork. The one who was conducting this case questioned the unfortunatejeweller very closely about his servants and his household generally.
"'I have three servants,' explained Mr. Shipman, two of whom have beenwith me for many years; one, the housemaid, is a fairly new comer--shehas been here about six months. She came recommended by a friend, andbore an excellent character. She and the parlourmaid room together. Thecook, who knew me when I was a schoolboy, sleeps alone; all threeservants sleep on the floor above. I locked the jewels up in the safewhich stands in the dressing-room. My keys and watch I placed, as usual,beside my bed. As a rule, I am a fairly light sleeper.
"'I cannot understand how it could have happened--but--you had bettercome up and have a look at the safe. The key must have been abstractedfrom my bedside, the safe opened, and the keys replaced--all while I wasfast asleep. Though I had no occasion to look into the safe until justnow, I should have discovered my loss before going to business, for Iintended to take the diamonds away with me--'
"The detective and the inspector went up to have a look at the safe. Thelock had in no way been tampered with--it had been opened with its ownkey. The detective spoke of chloroform, but Mr. Shipman declared thatwhen he woke in the morning at about half-past seven there was no smellof chloroform in the room. However, the proceedings of the daring thiefcertainly pointed to the use of an anaesthetic. An examination of thepremises brought to light the fact that the burglar had, as in Mr.Knopf's house, used the glass-panelled door from the garden as a meansof entrance, but in this instance he had carefully cut out the pane ofglass with a diamond, slipped the bolts, turned the key, and walked in.
"'Which among your servants knew that you had the diamonds in your houselast night, Mr. Shipman?' asked the detective.
"'Not one, I should say,' replied the jeweller, 'though, perhaps, theparlourmaid, whilst waiting at table, may have heard me and Mr. Knopfdiscussing our bargain.'
"'Would you object to my searching all your servants' boxes?'
"'Certainly not. They would not object, either, I am sure. They areperfectly honest.'
"The searching of servants' belongings is invariably a uselessproceeding," added the man in the corner, with a shrug of the shoulders."No one, not even a latter-day domestic, would be fool enough to keepstolen property in the house. However, the usual farce was gone through,with more or less protest on the part of Mr. Shipman's servants, andwith the usual result.
"The jeweller could give no further information; the detective andinspector, to do them justice, did their work of investigation minutelyand, what is more, intelligently. It seemed evident, from theirdeductions, that the burglar had commenced proceedings on No. 26,Phillimore Terrace, and had then gone on, probably climbing over thegarden walls between the houses to No. 22, where he was almost caught inthe act by Robertson. The facts were simple enough, but the mysteryremained as to the individual who had managed to glean the informationof the presence of the diamonds in both the houses, and the means whichhe had adopted to get that information. It was obvious that the thief orthieves knew more about Mr. Knopf's affairs than Mr. Shipman's, sincethey had known how to use Mr. Emile Knopf's name in order to get hisbrother out of the way.
"It was now nearly ten o'clock, and the detectives, having taken leaveof Mr. Shipman, went back to No. 22, in order to ascertain whether Mr.Knopf had come back; the door was opened by the old charwoman, who saidthat her master had returned, and was having some breakfast in thedining-room.
"Mr. Ferdinand Knopf was a middle-aged man, with sallow complexion,black hair and beard, of obviously Hebrew extraction. He spoke with amarked foreign accent, but very courteously, to the two officials, who,he begged, would excuse him if he went on with his breakfast.
"'I was fully prepared to hear the bad news,' he explained, 'which myman Robertson told me when I arrived. The letter I got last night was abogus one; there is no such person as J. Collins, M.D. My brother hadnever felt better in his life. You will, I am sure, very soon trace thecunning writer of that epistle--ah! but I was in a rage, I can tellyou, when I got to the Metropole at Brighton, and found that Emile, mybrother, had never heard of any Doctor Collins.
"'The last train to town had gone, although I raced back to the stationas hard as I could. Poor old Robertson, he has a terrible cold. Ah yes!my loss! it is for me a very serious one; if I had not made that luckybargain with Mr. Shipman last night I should, perhaps, at this moment bea ruined man.
"'The stones I had yesterday were, firstly, some magnificent Brazilians;these I sold to Mr. Shipman mostly. Then I had some very good Capediamonds--all gone; and some quite special Parisians, of wonderful workand finish, entrusted to me for sale by a great French house. I tellyou, sir, my loss will be nearly L10,000 altogether. I sell oncommission, and, of course, have to make good the loss.'
"He was evidently trying to bear up manfully, and as a business manshould, under his sad fate. He refused in any way to attach theslightest blame to his old and faithful servant Robertson, who hadcaught, perhaps, his death of cold in his zeal for his absent master. Asfor any hint of suspicion falling even remotely upon the man, the veryidea appeared to Mr. Knopf absolutely preposterous.
"With regard to the old charwoman, Mr. Knopf certainly knew nothingabout her, beyond the fact that she had been recommended to him by oneof the tradespeople in the neighbourhood, and seemed perfectly honest,respectable, and sober.
"About the tramp Mr. Knopf knew still less, nor could he imagine how he,or in fact anybody else, could possibly know that he happened to havediamonds in his house that night.
"This certainly seemed the great hitch in the case.
"Mr. Ferdinand Knopf, at the instance of the police, later on went tothe station and had a look at the suspected tramp. He declared that hehad never set eyes on him before.
"Mr. Shipman, on his way home from business in the afternoon, had donelikewise, and made a similar statement.
"Brought before the magistrate, the tramp gave but a poor account ofhimself. He gave a name and address, which latter, of course, proved tobe false. After that he absolutely refused to speak. He seemed not tocare whether he was kept in custody or not. Very soon even the policerealized that, for the present, at any rate, nothing could be got out ofthe suspected tramp.
"Mr. Francis Howard, the detective, who had charge of the case, thoughhe would not admit it even to himself, was at his wits' ends. You mustremember that the burglary, through its very simplicity, was anexceedingly mysterious affair. The constable, D 21, who had stood inAdam and Eve Mews, presumably while Mr. Knopf's house was being robbed,had seen no one turn out from the _cul-de-sac_ into the main passage ofthe mews.
"The stables, which immediately faced the back entrance of thePhillimore Terrace houses, were all private ones belonging to residentsin the neighbourhood. The coachmen, their families, and all the groomswho slept in the stablings were rigidly watched and questioned. One andall had seen nothing, heard nothing, until Robertson's shrieks hadroused them from their sleep.
"As for the letter from Brighton, it was absolutely commonplace, andwritten upon note-paper which the detective, with Machiavellian cunning,traced to a stationer's shop in West Street. But the trade at thatparticular shop was a very brisk one; scores of people had boughtnote-paper there, similar to that on which the supposed doctor hadwritten his tricky letter. The handwriting was cramped, perhaps adisguised one; in any case, except under very exceptional circu
mstances,it could afford no clue to the identity of the thief. Needless to say,the tramp, when told to write his name, wrote a totally different andabsolutely uneducated hand.
"Matters stood, however, in the same persistently mysterious state whena small discovery was made, which suggested to Mr. Francis Howard anidea, which, if properly carried out, would, he hoped, inevitably bringthe cunning burglar safely within the grasp of the police.
"That was the discovery of a few of Mr. Knopf's diamonds," continued theman in the corner after a slight pause, "evidently trampled into theground by the thief whilst making his hurried exit through the garden ofNo. 22, Phillimore Terrace.
"At the end of this garden there is a small studio which had been builtby a former owner of the house, and behind it a small piece of wasteground about seven feet square which had once been a rockery, and isstill filled with large loose stones, in the shadow of which earwigs andwoodlice innumerable have made a happy hunting ground.
"It was Robertson who, two days after the robbery, having need of alarge stone, for some household purpose or other, dislodged one fromthat piece of waste ground, and found a few shining pebbles beneath it.Mr. Knopf took them round to the police-station himself immediately, andidentified the stones as some of his Parisian ones.
"Later on the detective went to view the place where the find had beenmade, and there conceived the plan upon which he built big cherishedhopes.
"Acting upon the advice of Mr. Francis Howard, the police decided to letthe anonymous tramp out of his safe retreat within the station, and toallow him to wander whithersoever he chose. A good idea, perhaps--thepresumption being that, sooner or later, if the man was in any way mixedup with the cunning thieves, he would either rejoin his comrades or evenlead the police to where the remnant of his hoard lay hidden; needlessto say, his footsteps were to be literally dogged.
"The wretched tramp, on his discharge, wandered out of the yard,wrapping his thin coat round his shoulders, for it was a bitterly coldafternoon. He began operations by turning into the Town Hall Tavern fora good feed and a copious drink. Mr. Francis Howard noted that he seemedto eye every passer-by with suspicion, but he seemed to enjoy hisdinner, and sat some time over his bottle of wine.
"It was close upon four o'clock when he left the tavern, and then beganfor the indefatigable Mr. Howard one of the most wearisome anduninteresting chases, through the mazes of the London streets, he everremembers to have made. Up Notting Hill, down the slums of NottingDale, along the High Street, beyond Hammersmith, and through Shepherd'sBush did that anonymous tramp lead the unfortunate detective, neverhurrying himself, stopping every now and then at a public-house to get adrink, whither Mr. Howard did not always care to follow him.
"In spite of his fatigue, Mr. Francis Howard's hopes rose with everyhalf-hour of this weary tramp. The man was obviously striving to killtime; he seemed to feel no weariness, but walked on and on, perhapssuspecting that he was being followed.
"At last, with a beating heart, though half perished with cold, and withterribly sore feet, the detective began to realize that the tramp wasgradually working his way back towards Kensington. It was then closeupon eleven o'clock at night; once or twice the man had walked up anddown the High Street, from St. Paul's School to Derry and Toms' shopsand back again, he had looked down one or two of the side streetsand--at last--he turned into Phillimore Terrace. He seemed in no hurry,he oven stopped once in the middle of the road, trying to light a pipe,which, as there was a high east wind, took him some considerable time.Then he leisurely sauntered down the street, and turned into Adam andEve Mews, with Mr. Francis Howard now close at his heels.
"Acting upon the detective's instructions, there were several men inplain clothes ready to his call in the immediate neighbourhood. Twostood within the shadow of the steps of the Congregational Church at thecorner of the mews, others were stationed well within a soft call.
"Hardly, therefore, had the hare turned into the _cul-de-sac_ at theback of Phillimore Terrace than, at a slight sound from Mr. FrancisHoward, every egress was barred to him, and he was caught like a rat ina trap.
"As soon as the tramp had advanced some thirty yards or so (the wholelength of this part of the mews is about one hundred yards) and was lostin the shadow, Mr. Francis Howard directed four or five of his men toproceed cautiously up the mews, whilst the same number were to form aline all along the front of Phillimore Terrace between the mews and theHigh Street.
"Remember, the back-garden walls threw long and dense shadows, but thesilhouette of the man would be clearly outlined if he made any attemptat climbing over them. Mr. Howard felt quite sure that the thief wasbent on recovering the stolen goods, which, no doubt, he had hidden inthe rear of one of the houses. He would be caught _in flagrantedelicto_, and, with a heavy sentence hovering over him, he wouldprobably be induced to name his accomplice. Mr. Francis Howard wasthoroughly enjoying himself.
"The minutes sped on; absolute silence, in spite of the presence of somany men, reigned in the dark and deserted mews.
"Of course, this night's adventure was never allowed to get into thepapers," added the man in the corner with his mild smile. "Had the planbeen successful, we should have heard all about it, with a longeulogistic article as to the astuteness of our police; but as itwas--well, the tramp sauntered up the mews--and--there he remained foraught Mr. Francis Howard or the other constables could ever explain. Theearth or the shadows swallowed him up. No one saw him climb one of thegarden walls, no one heard him break open a door; he had retreatedwithin the shadow of the garden walls, and was seen or heard of nomore."
"One of the servants in the Phillimore Terrace houses must have belongedto the gang," said Polly with quick decision.
"Ah, yes! but which?" said the man in the corner, making a beautifulknot in his bit of string. "I can assure you that the police left not astone unturned once more to catch sight of that tramp whom they had hadin custody for two days, but not a trace of him could they find, nor ofthe diamonds, from that day to this."