The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman

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      “Yes, that will do,” said Mr. Lawley; “you two walk down together. Now let us go.”

      We trooped out on to the pavement, beside which a four-wheeler was drawn up, and as the others were entering the cab, Thorndyke stood close beside me for a moment.

      “Don’t let him pump you,” he said in a low voice, without looking at me; then he sprang into the cab and slammed the door.

      “What an extraordinary affair this is,” Walter Hornby re­marked, after we had been walking in silence for a minute or two; “a most ghastly business. I must confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it.”

      “How is that?” I asked.

      “Why, do you see, there are apparently only two possible theories of the crime, and each of them seems to be unthinkable. On the one hand there is Reuben, a man of the most scrupulous honour, as far as my experience of him goes, committing a mean and sordid theft for which no motive can be discovered—for he is not poor, nor pecuniarily embarrassed nor in the smallest degree avaricious. On the other hand, there is this thumb-print, which, in the opinion of the experts, is tantamount to the evidence of an eye-witness that he did commit the theft. It is positively bewildering. Don’t you think so?”

      “As you put it,” I answered, “the case is extraordinarily puzzling.”

      “But how else would you put it?” he demanded, with ill-concealed eagerness.

      “I mean that, if Reuben is the man you believe him to be, the thing is incomprehensible.”

      “Quite so,” he agreed, though he was evidently disappointed at my colourless answer.

      He walked on silently for a few minutes and then said: “I suppose it would not be fair to ask if you see any way out of the difficulty? We are all, naturally anxious about the upshot of the affair, seeing what poor old Reuben’s position is.”

      “Naturally. But the fact is that I know no more than you do, and as to Thorndyke, you might as well cross-examine a Whit­stable native as put questions to him.”

      “Yes, so I gathered from Juliet. But I thought you might have gleaned some notion of the line of defence from your work in the laboratory—the microscopical and photographic work I mean.”

      “I was never in the laboratory until last night, when Thorn­dyke took me there with your aunt and Miss Gibson; the work there is done by the laboratory assistant, and his knowledge of the case, I should say, is about as great as a type-founder’s knowledge of the books that he is helping to produce. No; Thorndyke is a man who plays a single-handed game and no one knows what cards he holds until he lays them on the table.”

      My companion considered this statement in silence while I congratulated myself on having parried, with great adroitness, a rather inconvenient question. But the time was not far distant when I should have occasion to reproach myself bitterly for hav­ing been so explicit and emphatic.

      “My uncle’s condition,” Walter resumed after a pause, “is a pretty miserable one at present, with this horrible affair added to his own personal worries.”

      “Has he any special trouble besides this, then?” I asked.

      “Why, haven’t you heard? I thought you knew about it, or I shouldn’t have spoken—not that it is in any way a secret, seeing that it is public property in the city. The fact is that his financial affairs are a little entangled just now.”

      “Indeed!” I exclaimed, considerably startled by this new de­vel­opment.

      “Yes, things have taken a rather awkward turn, though I think he will pull through all right. It is the usual thing, you know—investments, or perhaps one should say speculations. He appears to have sunk a lot of capital in mines—thought he was ‘in the know,’ not unnaturally; but it seems he wasn’t after all, and the things have gone wrong, leaving him with a deal more money than he can afford locked up and the possibility of a dead loss if they don’t revive. Then there are these infernal diamonds. He is not morally responsible, we know; but it is a question if he is not legally responsible, though the lawyers think he is not. Anyhow, there is going to be a meeting of the creditors tomorrow.”

      “And what do you think they will do?”

      “Oh, they will, most probably, let him go on for the present; but, of course, if he is made accountable for the diamonds there will be nothing for it but to ‘go through the hoop,’ as the sporting financier expresses it.”

      “The diamonds were of considerable value, then?”

      “From twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds’ worth vanished with that parcel.”

      I whistled. This was a much bigger affair than I had imagined, and I was wondering if Thorndyke had realised the magnitude of the robbery, when we arrived at the police court.

      “I suppose our friends have gone inside,” said Walter. “They must have got here before us.”

      This supposition was confirmed by a constable of whom we made inquiry, and who directed us to the entrance to the court. Passing down a passage and elbowing our way through the throng of idlers, we made for the solicitor’s box, where we had barely taken our seats when the case was called.

      Unspeakably dreary and depressing were the brief proceedings that followed, and dreadfully suggestive of the helplessness of even an innocent man on whom the law has laid its hand and in whose behalf its inexorable machinery has been set in motion.

      The presiding magistrate, emotionless and dry, dipped his pen while Reuben, who had surrendered to his bail, was placed in the dock and the charge read over to him. The counsel representing the police gave an abstract of the case with the matter-of-fact air of a house-agent describing an eligible property. Then, when the plea of “not guilty” had been entered, the witnesses were called. There were only two, and when the name of the first, John Hornby, was called, I glanced towards the witness-box with no little curiosity.

      I had not hitherto met Mr. Hornby, and as he now entered the box, I saw an elderly man, tall, florid, and well-preserved, but strained and wild in expression and displaying his uncontrollable agitation by continual nervous movements which contrasted curi­ously with the composed demeanour of the accused man. Nevertheless, he gave his evidence in a perfectly connected man­ner, recounting the events connected with the discovery of the crime in much the same words as I had heard Mr. Lawley use, though, indeed, he was a good deal more emphatic than that gentleman had been in regard to the excellent character borne by the prisoner.

      After him came Mr. Singleton, of the fingerprint department at Scotland Yard, to whose evidence I listened with close attention. He produced the paper which bore the thumb-print in blood (which had previously been identified by Mr. Hornby) and a paper bearing the print, taken by himself, of the prisoner’s left thumb. These two thumb-prints, he stated, were identical in every respect.

      “And you are of opinion that the mark on the paper that was found in Mr. Hornby’s safe, was made by the prisoner’s left thumb?” the magistrate asked in dry and business-like tones.

      “I am certain of it.”

      “You are of opinion that no mistake is possible?”

      “No mistake is possible, your worship. It is a certainty.”

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