With a final glance at the prostrate figure of Maurice, he walked on and took the road back to Ravensthorpe. But as he went a vision of Maurice’s face kept passing before his mind’s eye.
“There’s something damned far wrong with that beggar, whether it’s an evil conscience or cramp in the tummy. It might be either of them, by the look of him. He didn’t seem to want any assistance from me. That looks more like the evil conscience theory.”
He dismissed this with a laugh; but gradually he grew troubled.
“There he was, in white—same as the burglar. He’s in a bit of a bate at being discovered, that’s clear enough. He didn’t half like it, to judge by his chat.”
A discomforting hypothesis began to frame itself in his mind despite his efforts to stifle it.
“He’s the fellow, if there is one, who would know all these secret passages about here. Suppose there really is one leading out of that cave. He could have swarmed down the rope, got into the cave, sneaked up the subterranean passage, and got behind us that way.”
A fresh fact fitted suddenly in.
“And of course the other end of the passage may be in that Fairy House! That would explain his being there. He’d be waiting to see us off the premises before he could venture out in his white costume.”
He pondered over the problem as he hurried with long strides towards the house.
“Well,” he concluded, “I’m taking no further steps in the business. It’s no concern of mine to go probing into the private affairs of the family I’m going to marry into. And that’s that.”
Then, as a fresh aspect of the matter came to his mind, he gave a sigh of relief.
“I must be a stricken idiot! No man would ever dream of burgling his own house. What would he gain by it, if he did? The thing’s ridiculous.”
And the comfort which this view brought him was sufficient to lighten his steps for the rest of his way.
Chapter Five. SIR CLINTON IN THE MUSEUM
“THERE’S the light on again in the museum,” Sir Clinton observed. “I think we’ll go in and have a look round, now, to see if the place suggests anything.”
Mold stood aside to let them pass, and then resumed his watch at the door to prevent anyone else from entering the room. The servant had just finished fitting the new globe in its place and was preparing to remove the steps which he had used, when Sir Clinton ordered him to leave them in position and to await further instructions.
The museum was a room about forty feet square, with a lofty ceiling. To judge by the panelling of the walls, it belonged to the older part of Ravensthorpe; but the parquet of the floor seemed to be much more modern. Round the sides were placed exhibition cases about six feet high; and others of the same kind jutted out at intervals to form a series of shallow bays. In the centre of the room, directly under the lamp, stood a long, flat-topped case; and the floor beside it was littered with broken glass.
“I think we’ll begin at the beginning,” said Sir Clinton.
He turned to the servant who stood waiting beside the steps.
“Have you got the remains of the broken lamp there?”
“You can go now,” he added. “We shan’t need you further.”
When he had received the smashed lamp, he examined it.
“Not much to be made out of that,” he admitted. “It’s been one of these thousand candle-power gas-filled things; and there’s practically nothing left of it but the metal base and a few splinters of glass sticking to it.”
He looked up at the fresh lamp hanging above them.
“It’s thirty feet or so above the floor. Nothing short of a fishing-rod would reach it. Evidently they didn’t smash it by hand.”
He stooped down and sorted out one or two small fragments of glass from the debris at his feet.
“These are more bits of the lamp, Joan,” he said, holding them out for her to look at. “You see the curve of the glass; and you’ll notice that the whole affair seems to have been smashed almost to smithereens. There doesn’t seem to be a decent-sized fragment in the whole lot.”
He turned to the keeper.
“I think we’ll shut the door, Mold. We’d better conduct the rest of this business in private.”
The keeper closed the door of the museum, much to the disappointment of the group of people who had clustered about the entrance and were watching the proceedings with interest.
“Now, Joan, would you mind going round the wall-cases and seeing if anything has been taken from them?”
Joan obediently paced round the room and soon came back to report that nothing seemed to have been removed.
“All the cases were locked, you know,” she explained. “And there’s no glass broken in any of them. So far as I can see, nothing’s missing from the shelves.”
“What about that safe let into the wall over yonder?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“It’s used to house one or two extra valuable things from time to time,” Joan explained. “But to-night everything was put on show, and the safe’s empty.”
She went over and swung the door open, showing the vacant shelves within.
“We do take precautions usually,” she pointed out. “The museum door itself is iron-plated and has a special lock. It was only to-night that we had everything out in the show-cases.”
Sir Clinton refrained from comment, as he knew the girl was still blaming herself for her share in the catastrophe. He turned to examine the rifled section of the central case.
“What’s missing here, Joan, can you make out?”
Obediently, Joan came to his side and ran her eye over the remaining articles in the compartment.
“They’ve taken the Medusa Medallions!” she exclaimed, turning pale as she realized the magnitude of the calamity. “They’ve got the very pick of the collection, Sir Clinton. My father would have parted with all the rest rather than with these, I know.”
“Nothing else gone?”
Joan looked again at the case.
“No, nothing else, so far as I can see. Wait a bit, though! They’ve taken the electrotype copies as well. There were three of each: three medallions and an electrotype from each that Foxton Clifford made for us. The whole six are gone.”
She cast a final glance at the compartment.
“No, there’s nothing else missing, so far as I can see. Some of the things are displaced a bit; but everything except the medallions and the electros seems to be here.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Certain.”
Sir Clinton seemed satisfied.
“Of course we’ll have to check the stuff by the catalogue to make sure,” he said, “but I expect you’re right. The medallions alone would be quite a good enough haul for a minute or two’s work; and probably they had their eyes on the things as the best paying proposition of the lot.”
“But why did they take the electros as well?” Joan demanded.
Then a possible explanation occurred to her.
“Oh, of course, they wouldn’t know which was which, so they took the lot in order to make sure.”
“Possibly,” Sir Clinton admitted. “But don’t let’s be going too fast, Joan. We’d better not get ideas into our minds till we’ve got all the evidence, you know.”
“Oh, I see,” said Joan, with a faint return of her normal spirits, “I’m to be Watson, am I? And you’ll prove in a minute or two what an ass I’ve made of myself. Is that the idea?”
“Not altogether,” Sir Clinton returned, with a smile. “But let’s have the facts before the theories.”
He turned to the keeper.
“Now we’ll take your story, Mold; but give us the things in the exact order in which they happened, if you can. And don’t be worried if I break in with questions.”