le 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."

Hewitt scrambled up through the trap-way and examined it from the top. The
door was hung on long external barn-door hinges, and had been forced open
in a similar manner to that practiced on the desk. A jimmy had been pushed
between the frame and the door near the bolt, and the door had been pried
open, the bolt being torn away from the screws in the operation.

Presently Inspector Plummer, having finished his docket, climbed up to the
roof after Hewitt, and the two together went to the spot, close under a
chimney-stack on the next roof but one, where the case had been found.
Plummer produced the case, which he had in his coat-tail pocket, for
Hewitt's inspection.

"I don't see anything particular about it; do you?" he said. "It shows us
the way they went, though, being found just here."

"Well, yes," Hewitt said; "if we kept on in this direction, we should be
going toward Mr. Woollett's house, and _his_ trap-door, shouldn't we!"

The inspector pursed his lips, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. "Of
course we haven't waited till now to find that out," he said.

"No, of course. And, as you say, I didn't think there is much to be
learned from this leather case. It is almost new, and there isn't a mark
on it." And Hewitt handed it back to the inspector.

"Well," said Plummer, as he returned the case to his pocket, "what's your
opinion?"

"It's rather an awkward case."

"Yes, it is. Between ourselves--I don't mind telling you--I'm having a
sharp lookout kept over there"--Plummer jerked his head in the direction
of Mr. Woollett's chambers--"because the robbery's an unusual one. There's
only two possible motives--the sale of the cameo or the keeping of it. The
sale's out of the question, as you know; the thing's only salable to those
who would collar the thief at once, and who wouldn't have the thing in
their places now for anything. So that it must be taken to keep, and
that's a thing nobody but the maddest of collectors would do, just such
persons as--" and the inspector nod