In the West Room the Home Secretary opened fire on his guest.
"All these schemes of yours, Mr. Collop," he said firmly, "you must
discard. Time is essential. I ask you for some immediate action. This
very night. Mr. Collop, I beg you to proceed."
Mr. Collop needed no further invitation. Proceeding was his passion--I
might almost say, his vice.
"Got to be done express?" he asked. "Right-o! Now I'll tell ye my way. I
divide it," he continued, roaring powerfully, "into three heads." Then,
much more loudly, "Head number one."
"Pray, pray, Mr. Collop," agonised the Home Secretary, with outstretched
hands. "A little lower, please! We must not be overheard!"
"I'll tell you my express method--since ye want it express," said Mr.
Collop, speaking now no louder than your ordinary street orator,
railways guard or the cabinet minister at election. "First, to establish
what I call negative evidence. This term," he added sententiously, "I
will make clear in a moment. Two"--he ticked them off on his podgy
fingers--"what I call the search, comparable to the experiment conducted
by men of science; with no hypothetic bless you, none at all! Just
random like. Now then, in the midst of that we shall find a clue. What
then? Then number three. The hypothetic is formed, modified, readjusted,
co-ordinated, and leads infallibly to the inevitable conclusion."
He coughed and spat in the fire. It was perhaps the thirty-seventh time
in the last ten years that he had recited that piece. It had been
written out for him by his nephew, who, he was proud to say, attended
lectures at Manchester University, and he had it typewritten on a now
rather dirty sheet of paper which he carried about with him all over
England.
"So what do we do now?" he continued heartily. "Why, we begin by
establishing our negative evidence. Chrm! Chrm! And how do we do that?
Why, we make sure that it is not in this room."
"But how can one make sure of that?" said the Home Secretary, puzzled.
"Why, plain and straightforward, sir. I 'ave brought down my men and my
apparatus. We'll want the floor taken up. But that won't take long."
"What?" said the Home Secretary, in alarm.
"The floor, sir. The floor," said Mr. Collop magisterially. "And I say
again, it won't take long. My men will prise it up before you can say
'Sir Garnet'! And afore we do that another set of 'em will cut the
furniture open to see if it's not in the cracks. Then I have got two
with the new white light."
"What?" said the Home Secretary again.
"Why, this new dazzle I told you on," said Mr. Collop proudly.
"But my dear sir, my dear sir, when you say your men, what do you mean?"
"My men, Mr. Dee Boe Hun? Why, them men I ordered to come and 'elp me
with this job. They're at the Lion now, waiting."
And without asking his host's leave, he sat down squarely at the little
table by the telephone and rang up the Lion. When he had given his
message, he waited, head in air, hands clasped behind his back, a
monument of Induction and Deduction.
"Do I understand you to say," groaned Mr. de Bohun miserably, "that you
mean to pull up the floor to-night?"
"That's it," nodded Mr. Collop. "That's right. And open the furniture.
Only just enough to see it's not in any of the cracks. Then," he added,
looking critically at the fine Empire looking-glass upon the wall, "we
must have things down, of course. You never know what may lie concealed
lurking behind."
"Really, Mr. Collop, really," groaned the Home Secretary, clasping and
unclasping his hands, "I should think that ..."
"Job must be done thorough," frowned Mr. Collop, wagging his head. "I'd
never undertake the responsibility of searching individuals till I'd
made sure 'twasn't in the room where 'twas lost."
Even as he spoke there came an honest bang upon the outer door; shortly
after another, still more honest, upon the door of the room, and the
shuffling of many feet. Once more dispensing with the formality of
consulting his host, the great Collop unbolted the door, and with a
Napoleonic gesture introduced his merry men.
They were a sight, they were! Six of them seemed to have been chosen
rather for strength than for intellectual power. Two staggered under an
enormous iron tripod with heaven knows what contraption poised on its
summit, and a cylinder of gas. Three more bore with them sundry
instruments. And of all this little army Mr. Collop, with fine decision,
took immediate charge.
"Now, then, lads!" he said; "hearty! The job's got to be done quick. All
the rugs first, please. You two with the light, stand off! Stand on the
window-sill. Then you won't be in the way." So they did, the marks of
their heavy boots contrasting finely with the delicate woodwork of that
Jane Austen room.
"Rugs all rolled?" said Mr. Collop. "Yes! That's right! Shake 'em first,
yes! That's right! Pile 'em up on that other window. Now then, tables
out of it! Smart!"
He opened the door, and behold! half a dozen willing pairs of hands
pushed the small table, the middle table, the big desk, the little
table, and the what-not, one after the other, vigorously into the
hall--and the door was shut again.
"Now, me boys! up with the Austrians!"
His heart was in his work, and he inspired his command as all great
leaders can. The sundry instruments so useful in work of this kind did
their rapid work, lifting one large square after another, while the
owner of the same danced with astonishing agility from spot to spot,
remaining at last on one isolated island, which he was courteously
bidden to abandon; taking refuge then upon the remaining low
window-sill, while the five large lounge chairs in the room were laid
carefully on their backs across the joists as the work proceeded.
"That's the style!" said Mr. Collop, cheerfully. "Pile 'em up, lads!
Pile 'em up!"
And those sham-ancient polished parquet squares, their very base modern
pitch pine reverse pitifully exposed--but, as Mr. Collop proudly pointed
out, not one of them broken--were carefully laid against the wall,
nicely missing the Cox and the Morland, but threatening in some degree,
should they shift or slip, the large picture of Paulings in the early
eighteenth century, which was the place's pride--and so it ought to be!
Paulings belonged to gentlemen then. Two of them were to be seen riding
horses which had done nothing but eat for years and yet walked on their
hind legs. They were followed by four dogs....
But to my tale....
The two citizens with the tripod set it down between the old dusty
joists upon which the floor boards had rested, and of a sudden a most
abominable glare, like the white heat from molten iron, shot in a shaft
upon a corner in the uncovered lower flooring. It was brilliant beyond
the dreams of avarice. It revealed like remorse. Mr. Collop with an
agility surprising in a man of his build, leaped down that little
distance, and kept on shouting directions.
"That's right now! Sweep it along! Sweep it along! Sweep it along!" The
blinding shaft of light slowly traversed the edges of the shallow void
from end to end, from left to right. "Now back again!" said Mr. Collop.
"Now back again!"
The intense beam travelled back in another band, slightly nearer, from
right to left; and all the while the detective followed with keen eyes
every patch which it successively illuminated.
It was not a long process. Three or four minutes at the most. And while
it continued, the Home Secretary, perched in security on his
window-sill, was interested in spite of himself: new science is always a
toy.... And that was how they searched for the jewels in the flooring of
the West Room.
Mr. Collop's hand went up, and the blinding shaft of light disappeared
as suddenly as it had come.
"That'll do, lads!" he said. "We know one thing now, any'ow. It didn't
get down through the flooring; that's certain. Now then, if you please,
we'll open the furniture."
Mr. de Bohun did not please.
"Surely, surely it can be spared," he begged. "It's Victorian."
"Now, sir," protested Collop firmly, "I'll be responsible for nothing
unless I'm pursuing my own method."
The Home Secretary sighed and surrendered. With deft fingers two of the
three extras began picking out the stitching of the chairs after every
loose cushion had been lifted, shaken, and put aside.
It was beautiful to see such expert work; at least, it was beautiful in
Mr. Collop's eyes; but the Home Secretary almost shed tears. Those
chairs were his father's! The Great Peal, the immortal Benjamin Israel,
had graced them. And again--who was going to pay for all this? All the
edges of the leather stood out; the secret places were revealed. There
was no emerald.
Mr. Collop beamed with satisfaction.
"That, sir," he said triumphantly, "is the end of what we've called our
_Negative_ process. Hey! Number One!" And he ticked off on his thumb, as
he had done before.
"We are now assured," he boomed, tucking his thumbs into the armholes of
his waistcoat, "that wherever the Em'rald may be, it's not in this room.
Stay a moment! I'd forgotten! The pictures down, please!"