Towards half-past five in the morning Mr. Johnson was awakened from a
heavy slumber by the clamorous and increasing twitter of birds in the
shrubberies and gardens outside. He woke with the sensation of being
exceedingly uncomfortable and of being in an entirely unaccustomed spot.
He sat up, looking around him. He was on the floor of the library, his
revolver, with one barrel discharged, by his side, a dried but painful
cut upon his cheek bone, and with the haunting remains of a most
unpleasant odour still hanging about the room. He staggered to his feet
with poignant apprehensions of disaster. A panel in the door
communicating with the smaller apartment which it had been his purpose
to guard had been neatly cut out, and the spring lock apparently picked
from the other side. The door itself stood open. Inside, the
steel-clamped coffer in which Endacott had kept his manuscripts lay
upside down and empty upon the carpet. Mr. Johnson nodded slowly to
himself. It was a moment of great humiliation. After fifteen years of
adventurous life, of scraps with Chinese cutthroats, Malay thieves,
scamps of every sort, armed with every kind of weapon, he had,
notwithstanding ample warning, been tricked by an amateur. He made a
closer examination and realised how it must have happened. He had waited
in the darkness for the opening of the garden door, and the intruder,
whoever it might have been, had surprised him by coming in the other
way--there were, after all, a dozen windows on the ground floor by which
he might have entered--and stealing upon him from behind. He could
recall, even then with his dazed senses, as he leaned out to get a
little fresh air, the absolute noiselessness of that encounter. It was
less a sound than the consciousness of somebody's presence which had
made him suddenly alert, and then, before he could even turn, arms like
iron bands were around his throat and the handkerchief was pressed to
his nostrils. Night after night he had waited for what had happened, and
when his opportunity had come--well, this was the end of it!
He moved to the telephone, rang up the police station and, after a few
minutes' delay, conducted a conversation with the inspector in charge.
Afterwards he locked up the library, proceeded upstairs, took a bath,
changed into his ordinary tweed morning clothes, and drank several cups
of tea.
"Disturbed at all during the night, Morton?" he asked the butler.
"Can't say that I was, sir," the man replied, looking curiously at the
slight wound on his master's face.
"You sleep well then," was the latter's dry comment. "There was a
burglary here between three and four o'clock. Keep your mouth shut until
after the police have been."
"God bless my soul, sir!" the man exclaimed. "You look as though you'd
been hurt, sir."
"Nothing to speak of. I heard a noise and went down. Fellow got at me
before I could turn the light on. Remember, not a word, Morton. The
police sergeant will be here in a few minutes."
The sergeant came; a tall and ponderous man, slow of speech, persistent
and given to repetitions. He spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour, notebook
in hand, on a blank page of which he made a rough sketch of the room
itself and the window through which it was discovered that the intruder
had entered.
"And you miss nothing of value in any other part of the house, sir?" he
enquired for the sixth or seventh time, prior to taking his leave.
"Nothing that I can trace," Mr. Johnson replied. "You must remember that
I am only a sub-tenant. Nothing of my own is missing, nor any of the
familiar objects in the library."
The sergeant returned the book to his pocket.
"A mysterious affair," he pronounced. "Nothing gone, apparently, but a
pile of old papers. We must telephone to the lawyers who let the place
and interview the tenant. The inspector will be over this afternoon,
sir, and I dare say he will be along to see you."
The man took his leave and Mr. Johnson crossed the road and knocked at
the door of the Little House. Miss Besant opened it herself and greeted
him with a smile.
"I was just coming across," she said. "Madame wants to see you."
Mr. Johnson was ushered into the cool drawing-room, where Madame was
lying upon her couch. She held out one hand and with the other waved
imperiously to Miss Besant to depart.
"Something has happened--something happened last night!" she exclaimed.
"What was it?"
He took the chair to which she pointed, close to her side.
"A burglary," he confided. "I was coming in to ask you to communicate at
once with Miss Endacott. The whole of the papers in the chest which was
locked up in the inner library are gone."
"The burglar," she demanded breathlessly. "Has he been caught? Is there
any clue?"
"Not at present," Mr. Johnson acknowledged. "There hasn't been much
time."
"He got away then?"
"Yes, he got away."
She looked at the scar on her visitor's face.
"Did you see him?" she asked.
"I didn't see him but I felt him," Mr. Johnson rejoined, a little
ruefully. "We had scarcely more than a few seconds' scrap in the dark.
He came up from behind with a chloroformed handkerchief."
She lay back and closed her eyes. In a moment or two she seemed to
recover herself.
"Papers--nothing but papers stolen," she murmured. "That doesn't sound
like an ordinary burglary."
"It wasn't," he agreed.
"What do you think about it?" she asked eagerly.
"What is there to think?" he rejoined. "Some one wanted those papers. We
must communicate with Miss Endacott at once and ascertain what they were
and to whom they would be of value."
"You needn't trouble to do that," Madame confided; "my niece will be
here this afternoon. She is coming down to stay with me for a few days."
Mr. Johnson was thoughtful for a moment or two.
"Well," he observed, "it is perhaps opportune."
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded, nervously clasping and
unclasping her fingers.
He laid his hand upon hers soothingly.
"You are distressing yourself needlessly, Madame," he said. "I only mean
that her visit will make it unnecessary for us to communicate with her.
She will be able to tell us whether the papers were of great value."
There was another silence.
"I think I can solve that problem," Madame declared. "They are of no
value at all. The coffer contained a collection of Chinese manuscripts,
some of which my brother had already translated, and a few others which
he had not examined."
"Is that so?" Mr. Johnson observed. "Seems queer, doesn't it, if that
was all, that there should be bars on the windows and a double lock on
the door?"
"My niece will explain that," Madame replied. "There was one which he
translated just before he died, which might have had some value. Claire
did not feel like examining it at the time. She wished it kept safely,
however."
"I see," Mr. Johnson murmured.
"What do the police say about it?" she demanded.
"So far," was the somewhat sardonic rejoinder, "the police have been
represented by Sergeant May. His opinion is, I think, that it is a
mysterious affair."
"What do you think of it yourself?" she asked him suddenly.
"I think," he replied, "that the burglar, whoever he was, was after
those Chinese manuscripts and nothing else. Therefore I don't think it
was an ordinary sort of burglar at all. I should say not. It was some
one who knew what he wanted, and he seems to have got it."
"I wish I knew the truth about you," Madame sighed.
He smiled.
"Well," he said, "I'm a pretty obvious sort of person, aren't I?"
"No," she answered. "On the contrary, you puzzle me, you frighten me."
"Just why, at the present moment?" he asked tolerantly.
"Because," she confided, her eyes fixed upon his, "I don't understand
what you were doing in the lane out by your gate this morning about a
quarter of an hour before the burglary."
"Did you see me?" he enquired, after a moment's pause.
"Yes. I have seen you there other mornings at the same time. What do you
do? For whom do you watch?"
"I am a light sleeper," he explained. "Last night I fancied that I heard
some one stirring. I had a walk round the place. As it happens, you see,
I was right."
She shook her head.
"You were out in the lane," she persisted.
"Perhaps you think I committed the burglary myself," he suggested.
The eyes which were fixed upon his so steadily grew even more intense.
"I should not be surprised," she said. "I should not be surprised at
anything I heard about you. I do not believe that any of the stories you
tell about yourself are true. You frighten me, living there. I hate it."
"You have nothing to fear from me," he assured her. "I am a very
harmless person."
"But you haven't told the truth about yourself," she persisted.
There was the sound of hoofs in the lane. Madame looked out of the
window and a wonderful light swept over her face. Sir Bertram was
dismounting from the hack which he had ridden across the park. He handed
the reins to the roadmender who came hobbling up, threw away his
cigarette, and, with the familiarity of habitude, turned the handle of
the door and immediately afterwards entered the drawing-room. He nodded
to Mr. Johnson as he came over to Madame with outstretched hands.
"Dear Angèle," he said, "you see I anticipated the time of my usual
call. I thought perhaps that this news might have upset you."
"You have heard then?" she exclaimed.
"A lurid account of the affair was served up with my morning tea," Sir
Bertram replied. "My commiserations, Mr. Johnson. I am relieved to find
you in such good shape, however. The least sensational story is that you
were battered almost to death by several brawny-looking ruffians and had
already been moved to Norwich Infirmary."
"The report," Mr. Johnson declared, "is exaggerated."
"Anything of value gone?" the newcomer enquired.
"Miss Endacott is the only one who can tell us that," was the quiet
answer. "The box containing her uncle's manuscripts was broken open and
the manuscripts themselves have disappeared."
Sir Bertram drew up a chair and lit one of the cigarettes from the box
which Madame pushed towards him. His long, lean figure looked at its
best in the well-cut riding clothes he was wearing. The summer had
brought an extra tinge of brown sunburn into his cheeks. His eyes were
bright and clear. He seemed in the best of spirits and health.
"That lends quite a note of romance to the affair," he remarked. "I
wonder what our local Sherlock Holmes will make of it."
"He has pronounced the affair mysterious," Mr. Johnson confided. "I find
it so myself," he continued, a moment later. "One would not have
imagined that there were many people with a craze for Chinese
manuscripts."
"More useful to us than any one," Sir Bertram remarked. "Gregory has a
couple of wonderful wooden Images up at the Hall--you've seen them, Mr.
Johnson--which are supposed to be full of jewels if we could only
discover the key. That poor fellow Endacott knew all about it. He was at
work on some papers, which he had brought home with him from China, just
before his death, but up to then he had not come across anything that
helped us."
Mr. Johnson rose to his feet.
"If I might be permitted to pay my respects to Miss Endacott as soon as
she arrives," he begged, "I should be glad."
"Certainly," Madame assented.
"Is Miss Endacott expected here?" Sir Bertram asked.
"This afternoon," she replied. "I only heard last night."
For a single second there was a curious change in Sir Bertram's face.
The insouciance, almost the gaiety, seemed suddenly to have fallen away,
as though it had been a mask. His eyes were hard and tired. Then he
recovered himself.
"Opportune," he remarked lightly. "Come and see us again soon up at the
Hall, Mr. Johnson."
The latter bowed to Madame and turned away. There was something almost
menacing in his gravity.
"You are very kind, Sir Bertram," he said, as he took his leave.