stout, comfortable, complacent-looking, sank down with a sigh into the easy chair and smiled affectionately at Daphne Wrayne. All the same she was distinctly puzzled, for it was the first time she had entered that luxurious room.
Daphne herself she had known from babyhood and when she had launched out into that extraordinary enterprise known as the Adjusters she, the duchess, was one of the first to cross-question her upon it. Not that she had learned any more from the girl than the public knew.
The Adjusters had suddenly sprung into being one day in lavishly furnished offices in Conduit Street. Their object, they said, was to handle and solve the cases with which the police were unable to cope—and they charge no fees whatsoever!
But that was a year ago, and today the duchess knew as she gazed at pretty, beautifully dressed Daphne Wrayne smiling at her from her big carved oak chair, that this girl represented the Adjusters as far as the public knew.
She admitted to four mysterious colleagues, but no one had ever seen them. According to her, no one was ever going to see them! But the duchess knew, because the press constantly told her so, that the public, rich and poor alike, brought all sorts of cases to Daphne—and Daphne solved them!
At the moment she was almost the most talked-of young woman in the whole of London, credited with the most amazing powers. Though she herself invariably denied them.
“So this is where you do all your Sherlock Holmes stuff, is it?” said the duchess, gazing round the room. “What an amazin’ young woman you are, my dear.”
“Everybody’s talkin’ about you—crazy to know who’s with you in this show of yours. What on earth you do it for I don’t know. The modern young women simply get me beat.”
Daphne Wrayne laughed softly.
“Well, it’s huge fun.”
“Tell that to any one who’ll swallow it!” retorted the other with a little sniff. “I haven’t known you from babyhood for nothing. You never studied law for those years just for fun—don’t tell me!
“Though why on earth you charge no fees in this place, defeats me. D’you know that you’ve made such a name for yourselves that you could charge some of your clients what you like?”
“I believe we could,” calmly, “but as we run the risk almost every week of our lives of being caught, tried and sent to prison—”
“You sit there and tell me that?” amazed.
“I do, and mean it. Oh, mind you, duchess, there’d be no stigma attaching to any one of us. I’m not even sure that any jury would convict us even if we were caught. At the same time we’ve got to work with absolutely clean hands and the moment the public knows we’re making money out of this show our hands cease to be absolutely clean. And that’s why we never charge any fees.
“Everybody suspected us at first—they were bound to. Philanthropy’s rare these days. But gradually they’ve learned they can trust us. We’ve solved cases that have baffled the police, and—which is far more important—there’s no publicity.”
“But how on earth do you do it?”
The girl smiled.
“It’s not amazingly difficult, duchess, come to think of it. A capital of a quarter of a million—that’s our first asset. Four of the biggest brains in England—that’s the second. And those four going everywhere and mixing with everybody and no one with even the vaguest notion of who they are.”
“You mean to say I know them?” incredulously.
“Most assuredly,” smiling, “though you haven’t even an idea that they’re my colleagues. And until we trip up, you and the public never will.”
The duchess drew a deep breath.
“It’s beyond words!” she said.
“Well, then,” went on the girl, “the police are working all the time under a handicap and we’re not. If the police, say, have reason to suspect a man of holding stolen property they daren’t enter his house and search it unless they’re practically sure. If they make a mistake there’s big trouble following.
“But that never worries us,” with an amused little laugh, “always provided that we don’t get caught. There’s no one to prosecute us because no one knows who to prosecute. We can tell ’em we’re the Adjusters, but that won’t help ’em.
“The only one of the Adjusters whom the public has ever seen is Daphne Wrayne. And Daphne Wrayne merely sits in this office like a good little girl. It’s her colleagues who pull the chestnuts out of the fire.”
The duchess regarded her helplessly. To look at the girl it all seemed so utterly preposterous. Anything less like the popular conception of the tread of a great criminal-hunting organization she found it impossible to imagine.
She studied the rose-leaf skin, the big, serious, brown eyes, the fair, curly hair, and the adorable little mouth. She looked at the slender bare arms, the slim, ringless hands—she looked at the wisp of a black frock that almost shrieked Bond Street in its expensive simplicity. She looked at the amber silk clad legs and the dainty little high-heeled shoes.
“I give it up,” she said.
Daphne laughed merrily.
“That’s right, my dear,” she answered. “Now have a cigarette and tell me what you want to see me about.”
The duchess took the cigarette offered to her, lit it, and lay back in her chair.
“You saw, of course, that I had my jewels stolen last week?”
“I did.”
“I was at the Yard this morning. They haven’t got a clew and they told me so. Absolutely baffled. ‘I shall go to the Adjusters then,’ I said, thinking to annoy them.
“ ‘Can’t do better,’ said Montarthur, who’s in charge of the case. ‘If Miss Wrayne can’t find ’em, no one can.’ Frankly, my dear, I was amazed. How on earth have you managed it?”
“Oh, we’ve helped the Yard in one or two cases,” carelessly. “Sir Arthur Conroy’s a darling. So is Montarthur, for that matter. We’re huge pals. But let’s get back to your case.
“I saw it in the papers, of course, but I didn’t read it. I never read the newspaper reports of cases where I’m not consulted.”
“I’ve taken Professor Daventry’s house at Ascot for a month,” began the duchess, but Daphne stopped her.
“Who’s he?”
“A wealthy old recluse—half a dozen letters after his name—written a dozen books on abstruse mathematics, inventive wizard—you’ll find him in ‘Who’s Who’—half a page to his name. Lets his house every year for a month at an exorbitant fee and jogs off to the Riviera.”
“Is he there now?”
“He is.”
“Right. Go ahead.”
The duchess lighted another cigarette.
“Beautiful house called Forest Lodge, sumptuously furnished with every modern convenience imaginable—even down to burglar alarms. Don’t wonder at that. He’s got some fine pictures and china, too.”
“Well?”
“The first night I was there I went to bed and locked all my jewels away in the safe in my bedroom.”
“Oh, you’ve got a safe there?”
“Yes—the latest pattern let into the wall, behind one of the pictures. There are only two keys in existence. I have one and the professor has the other. Mine has never left my possession.”
“And the professor’s on the Riviera,” smiled Daphne.
“Quite so.”
“Who else knows of the existence of this safe?” put in the girl. “Any of the servants in the house?”
“The butler, Daventry’s butler, admitted that he did. Incidentally I took over half a dozen of Daventry’s servants, but every one of ’em has been with him for years. I took my own maid with me, but I’d trust her with anything.”
“I see. Well, go on, duchess.”
“As I said I went to bed on Monday night after locking all my jewels up in the safe.”
“And the key?”
“Slept with it under my pillow.”
“Was it there next morning?”
“It was.”
“Your bedroom door locked?”
“It was.”
“Windows?”
“Both open at the top, but they’re fifty feet from the ground.”
“When did you next go to the safe?”
“The following evening before dinner. I took the key out of my vanity bag which had never left my hands all day, opened the safe and—everything gone!”
“What does everything include?”
“Six cases. My diamond necklace, my pearl necklace, my diamond tiara, my diamond pendant, and my two diamond bracelets. And if you put ’em at two hundred thousand pounds, my dear, you’re not a long way out.”
“And the police found nothing?” after a pause.
“All the police found, my dear, were footprints beneath my bedroom window and most of the burglar wires cut.”
Daphne’s eyebrows went up.
“That’s interesting,” she said.
For some moments she sat deep in thought frowning at her blotting pad. Then:
“I’ll run down and have a chat with Montarthur,” she said, “and I think I’ll get you to put me up for a day or two, duchess.”
“By all means, my dear,” with alacrity. “When shall I expect you?”
“Tonight probably,” after a little deliberation.
“Got a clew?”
Daphne threw back her head and laughed merrily.
“My dear duchess, I’m a girl, not a magician! You surely don’t expect me to have one so soon?”
“Frankly, inspector,” said Daphne Wrayne, as she and Montarthur sat together in the latter’s private room, “I’m only taking up this case because the Duchess of Arlington is an old friend.
“I don’t see the vaguest hope of succeeding where you people have failed, and I tell you so. But I can’t very well refuse, and I know you’ll understand. Now what can you tell me?”
“Very little, I’m afraid, Miss Wrayne,” with a shrug of his shoulders. “We found footprints, very big footprints, in the flower beds immediately below the duchess’s window, but there isn’t a pair of boots in the house that will fit ’em. We’ve interviewed all the servants and there isn’t one of them we can suspect.”
“What about the guests?”
He handed her a list.
“There they are.”
Daphne ran her eyes over the paper.
“I know every one of ’em,” she remarked laconically. Then: “The duchess tells me that some of the wires were cut?”
“Yes—evidently by a man who knew the wiring. That’s the only shadow of a clew we’ve got. The wires cut were the ones that affected only the duchess’s bedroom.”
“Really? And her windows were open she tells me!”
“They were. But there’s not a trace of any sort on the window ledges. Yet she swears her door was locked so that entry could only have been made from the windows.”
Daphne shook her head.
“You mustn’t forget, inspector, that we don’t know that the safe was tampered with during the night. She locked up her jewels at twelve on Monday and never opened the safe till six thirty on Tuesday.”
“You mean it might have been done during Tuesday, Miss Wrayne?”
“Well, it’s possible, isn’t it?”
“The duchess swears the key of the safe was never out of her possession.”
“My sex swears a lot of things—and believe ’em, too. Find any marks round the safe lock?”
He leaned forward.
“Very tiny traces of wax, Miss Wrayne!” he answered.
Daphne nodded.
“Then that tells us how it was done.”
“Yes, but not who did it,” ruefully.
She laughed.
“Well, just because two heads are always better than one, inspector, I’m going down there for a night or two. And if by any chance you’ve missed anything,” her brown eyes sparkling deliciously, “Heaven help you!”
She got up from her chair. Then suddenly stopped.
“By the way, inspector, you don’t happen to know when those alarm wires were installed and why?”
“Yes. I’ve found that out,” he replied. “The professor had them fitted in six months ago. There was an attempted burglary and a successful one there just about a year ago.
“The first was while the professor was in residence himself, but he alarmed the burglars and they got away with nothing. The second was when Lady Castlebrough was in residence. The professor lets his house every summer for Ascot.”
“I know. The duchess told me. What went that time?”
“Some of the professor’s own silver—not of very great value, though.”
“Any points of similarity between that robbery and this one?” queried the girl carelessly.
“None, Miss Wrayne.”
“Right! Then I won’t bother you any further.”
Anyone who had been privileged to peep into a locked room in the Euston the following afternoon, a room whose door bore the commonplace name of James Martin, would have seen five people—four men and a girl—sitting round a fire talking in low tones.
Probably, unless he was an unusually observant person—which few are—he wouldn’t have lingered there. For the room was merely a meagerly furnished office such as you may see anywhere.
And the still life was represented by no more than half a dozen deal chairs, a writing table with a few papers and commercial books, and a small safe.
Neither was the animated life, to the casual observer, worthy of more than the merest glance. All the four men were shabbily dressed. One of them, a big bronzed giant of a man with rather nice eyes, wore a muffler round his neck and smoked a brier pipe.
The tall, thin, rather hawklike-looking man who sat next to him had his coat collar turned up and his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets as he lounged in his chair.
The elderly, white-haired man with the benevolent face had turned his chair round and was straddling it, his arms resting on the back. The clean-shaven, good-looking, rather boyish man in the shiny blue suit was smoking a cigarette.
The girl, an amazingly pretty girl, too, was obviously in no better circumstances than those who sat facing her. A city typist perhaps on a few pounds a week judging from her clothes—though even the shabbiness of them couldn’t hide the slim beauty of her.
Had you told your casual observer that any one of these five could have written out a check for ten thousand pounds without, as the saying goes, feeling it, he would most probably have dropped down dead from sheer amazement.
Yet there were quite a number of people in Mayfair who would have been prepared to swear that if ever Daphne Wrayne of Conduit Street, Park Street, and Maidenhead had a twin sister, this girl must be she.
Half Debrett would have taken its oath without hesitation that the big bronzed giant was no other than Lord James Trevitter, the best known of all the sporting young English peers.
No less certain would they have been over the hawk-faced man. They would have known him at once as Sir Hugh Williamson, the great explorer.
The theatrical world would have identified the white-haired man in a second as Alan Sylvester, the popular actor manager. Bench and bar wouldn’t have hesitated even fractionally over the handsome, clean-shaven, cigarette-smoking man.
They would have been positive that it was Martin Everest, K. C., the biggest criminal barrister of modern times.
Yet there was scarcely a man in England who wouldn’t have given half of all he possessed to know what was only known to these five people. And that was that these men were the Adjusters!
“Jimmy” Trevitter was the first to speak, as he puffed at his brier pipe.
“Let’s have it, darling,” he began, for he and Daphne Wrayne had been engaged for months past, though no one but those in that room knew of it. “What is it today—blackmail, burglary, arson, or forgery?”
“The Duchess of Arlington’s jewels,” answered the girl as she drew off her shabby gloves and disclosed daintily manicured hands, strangely at variance with them. “She came to see me this morning.”
Martin Everest frowned.
“So the police are at a dead end, Daph?”
“Absolutely—worse luck.”
“Like that?”
“Sure,” admitted the girl with a little sigh. “I saw Montarthur this morning and told him the duchess had been to me. He was very charming, but I fancy he thought the same as I think—that we’ve got our work cut out.
“That’s the worst of acquiring a reputation like ours. We’re expected to do the impossible—”
“We advertised it, my dear, at the start,” suggested Williamson with a smile.
“I know, confound it,” answered the girl with a little laugh. “And now it’s coming home. If only people would come to us at once instead of—here’s the case, over ten days old and the duchess expects us to solve it! If she wasn’t such a dear old thing I’d have told her to go to Hades.”
She opened a packet of cigarettes, took one out, lit it.
“Still we’ve got to go for it, I suppose. I said I would. I’m off to Ascot tonight. And now I’ll tell you all I’ve got from Montarthur and perhaps you can give me a few suggestions.”
It was interesting to watch the four men as she talked, interesting to see how they hung on her words. They were all serious now and you could see in a moment that each one of them realized the quick, alert little brain that lay behind that thoughtful, beautiful young face of the girl who spoke so eagerly to them.
“Incidentally I went in to see Lady Castlebrough this morning,” she said, as she came to the end of her story. “I thought it might be as well.”
“Learn anything fresh there?” queried Trevitter.
“I learned something,” answered the girl slowly, “though whether it’s of any value or not I really don’t know.
“You see, the Castlebrough jewels are nearly as valuable as the Arlington jewels, and they’re both pretty famous. Is it pure coincidence that the house is let in two consecutive years to two people with wonderful jewels?”
“Are you suspecting the professor, Daph?” asked Everest in the pause that followed.
“A good detective puts nobody outside the pale of suspicion at the start, Martin,” retorted the girl. “Who knows anything of the professor?”
“I do,” said Williamson. “A little, clean-shaven, fussy, didactic sort of a chap. Marvelous mathematical brain and a bit of an expert on criminology. You’ll see him at most of the big trials at the Central Criminal Court.”
“Quite right. I’ve seen him,” asserted Everest, “though I don’t know him to speak to.”
“I attend most of ’em myself,” smiled the girl, “but I’d hate to have a black mark against me in consequence.”
“What’s your idea, Daph?” queried Trevitter.
“Oh, I haven’t got one, Jim. I’m just searching for any suspicious circumstance that will give me a line. And the professor only becomes suspicious because he did exactly the same to Lady Castlebrough as he did to the duchess. He showed both of them over the house, showed both of them the safe, and apparently dilated to both of them on its invulnerability!
“Now the duchess locks up her jewels in the safe and they’re stolen. But Lady Castlebrough doesn’t. She confided to me that she never believes in safes. Says that a burglar always goes for them, first thing.
“In each case there’s an attempted burglary the moment after these two people arrive. In the first case some silver of no value is stolen. In the second we find footprints and the jewels gone from the safe. But I’m wondering whether in the first case the safe and the jewels weren’t the real objective?
“Frankly, from what Montarthur tells me, I’m inclined to look on those footprints as a purposeful blind. He’s prepared to stake his reputation on the fact that the room was never entered by the window. In which case it was entered by the door.
“And we can assume that it was the work of some one who knew the distribution of the household. Otherwise why did he cut the wires outside the duchess’s bedroom?”
“Excellent bit of reasoning, my dear,” smiled Everest, “but where are your facts to fit it?”
“Of course, that’s the trouble,” admitted the girl. “I haven’t got any. All the same, Martin, we can at least follow our usual methods.”
“You mean your unusual methods, my dear,” with a chuckle.
“All right. Have it your way,” laughing. “But you know as well as I do that because I’m a girl and a young one at that, I help to balance you men.”
“That,” said Williamson thoughtfully, “is the greatest asset we’ve got. An impulsive young woman whose extensive legal training can’t entirely stop her from remembering that after all she’s a woman and therefore must at times follow intuition blindly, lest she be untrue to her sex.
“So, my child, I’ll tackle the professor forthwith.”
“I want you to,” retorted the girl. “He caught the eight fifty-three from Ascot on Saturday morning the sixteenth and was supposed to leave for the Riviera on the eleven o’clock from Victoria.”
“He had a reservation. Verify that—it shouldn’t be difficult. Of course,” a little twinkle came into her eyes, “if you’d care to fly over to Cannes to the Megantic Hotel and see if—”
“It’s as well money’s no object,” answered Williamson, with a grin. “You’d break any ordinary firm in a week. Still, there’s nothing like doing a job properly.
“I believe half our success is due to the fact that we do so many entirely unnecessary things that we can’t help hitting the necessary one in the process.”
Daphne made a little moue.
“Well, we get there,” she replied. “All the same I can’t quite see how we’re going to get there this time, and I tell you so straight. It looks seriously to me as if we’d taken on the impossible.”
For nearly an hour more they sat there discussing the case from every angle. But that was always Daphne Wrayne’s method. She had laid it down emphatically once to a reporter, and her words had been repeated in the next morning’s paper to form a controversy that lasted for weeks.
“The police are only out to catch the criminal,” she had said. “We’re merely after recovering the victim’s stolen property. Therefore we’re bound to work on different lines for the most part.”
“In cases where the police have been called in first and have covered all the ordinary channels without success, we are fairly safe in assuming that we have to look to the unusual ones for the solution of the problem. Therefore, if time permits, I call my colleagues together and ask for new ideas.
“No idea that they suggest is too impossible to be dismissed. Each one, however fantastic, has to be labeled and held in readiness in case one single new fact arises to suggest that it has a chance of being the correct solution.”
Consequently when Daphne arrived that evening at Forest Lodge, though she was by no means suspecting the professor of any share in the robbery she was holding in her mind the remote possibility that he could have had something to do with it.
“Except for myself and my servants, my dear,” said the duchess, “the house is empty. All my guests have gone and I’ve put off those who were coming—for a couple of days. You’re a famous young woman, you know, and I don’t want to handicap you in any way.”
“The famous young woman,” replied the girl airily, “hasn’t a notion what to do and doesn’t mind admitting it. Still she’s trying. Give her some tea, please, and then let her come up and see your room. All pukka detectives do that. No! I’m hanging on to this attaché case. It’s highly important.”
“What’s in it?” asked the duchess interestedly.
“The usual stock in trade,” answered Daphne with a little laugh. “An amazingly powerful magnifying glass, a foot-rule, a pair of compasses, a complete apparatus for finger-prints, a very extra-special camera and apparatus, bottles, boxes, et cetera. Some detective this child, I assure you!”
She dropped into a chair and producing her case lit a cigarette.
“Any news, duchess?”
“Not a bit. Have you?”
“Nix.”
“Any theories?”
“Whole bunches—and no facts to fit ’em.”
The duchess regarded her half smiling.
“I wish I could understand you, Daph!” she said. “You look like a schoolgirl on a holiday.”
“Well, that’s all I am really—only I’m on an interesting job of work. I don’t believe anyone will ever believe in me until I wear horn-rimmed glasses, homemade frocks, and elastic-sided boots. It’s a hard world for us women.”
She sighed pathetically as she lay back in her chair crossing her slender silken legs. But her eyes were mischievous all the same.
“Then why don’t you do it?” retorted the duchess.
“No darned fear! I just love fogging people. Come on!” jumping up. “Let’s go and explore the mysterious room.”
For nearly an hour the duchess sat in a chair in the corner of her bedroom while Daphne wandered round exploring everything. Scarcely a word passed between them during that hour—but the duchess saw an entirely new Daphne Wrayne.
There was very little of the “schoolgirl on a holiday” now about her. She went over every inch of that room with serious face and wrinkled white forehead. Nothing seemed to escape her notice. Magnifying glass in hand she examined every nook and crevice, safe, doors, floor, ceiling, walls.
Then at last she finished, came slowly over to the fireplace, pulled up a chair, lit another cigarette. She was looking puzzled, almost worried. For some minutes she smoked in silence, her eyes on the fire. Then at last the duchess spoke.
“Well, my dear?” she ventured.
The girl’s head came up quickly, and a smile flickered over her face.
“You’re rather a sweet person, aren’t you?” she queried. “You still persist in believing that I can do what the police have been unable to do. But I’m afraid,” a little wistfully, “that I’ve got to disappoint you.
“Duchess, all I can tell you is that I’m absolutely certain the burglar never came in through the window. But then I knew that before I came down here. And yet—” With an impatient gesture she got up from her chair and gazed round the room frowning.
“Those footprints outside were a blind,” she said shortly. “They were deliberately done to make you think that the burglar entered by the window. Momentarily, I’m at a dead end. I think I’ll go and have a hot tub and dress for dinner.”
A look of disappointment crossed the duchess’s face, but she merely answered quietly:
“I’ll take you and show you your room, my dear.”
Dinner was rather a taciturn meal. Daphne in her silver frock, and white shoes and stockings was looking more absurdly schoolgirlish than ever, but she seemed distinctly preoccupied and times without number her eyes kept wandering to the telephone which stood in the corner of the room.
And then suddenly it whirred into one of its calls and she sprang to her feet.
“That may be for me, duchess!” she exclaimed as she ran across the room. Then: “Hello—hello! Yes! It’s Daphne Wrayne speaking.” A little pause, and very slowly and deliberately: “P. Q. R. 22. Answer, please!”
The duchess looked on open-mouthed, saw the sudden smile that rippled over the girl’s face, and heard her go on, relief in her voice:
“Is that you, A 3? Well, have you any news for me?”
The duchess watched her intently. The beautiful face now became grave in a moment, a little frown had developed on the smooth white forehead—Daphne was listening intently, nodding thoughtfully, but still obviously worried.
“Yes, as you say, it’s distinctly curious— Oh! Most certainly suspicious! Can’t find a single thing to help us—I shall be here all tomorrow in case you find out anything more—Good-by, old man!”
She hung up the receiver slowly, thoughtfully—came back to her chair and sat down. Absently she picked up her cigarette case.
“Duchess,” she said, “if you take my tip you’ll never embark on a career like mine. It’s just one mass of—”
She stopped suddenly, abruptly. One slim hand had gone up to her mouth. Her whole attitude was that of one who had suddenly been arrested by an amazing idea.
“What’s the matter, Daph?”
For the space of seconds the girl sat very still as if carved in stone. Then:
“Duchess! Where’s the safe key?”
“In the safe. You left it there.”
“Wait here a minute!”
She was out of the room in a flash. In a few minutes she was back again, but now her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining.
“Duchess!” her voice was almost quivering. “Come upstairs with me—quickly, please! Oh, don’t talk! Just come!”
Up in the bedroom Daphne turned to the amazed woman who was staring helplessly around.
“I want an empty jewel case—quickly!” she said. “Any old one will do.”
Still regarding her bewilderedly the other went to her chest of drawers, unlocked it.
“Will this do?”
“Fine! Anything in it? No? Good. Come over to the safe!”
Snatching the case from her hands Daphne half pulled her across the room, flung open the safe.
“Now I’m putting it inside—see?”
She thrust the jewel case in, pushed to the safe door, turned the key—waited for the space of seconds. Then once more she turned the key in the lock and pulled open the safe door.
The safe was empty!
In a moment she had seized the duchess by the waist and was whirling her round the room delightedly.
“I’ve solved it, I’ve solved it!” she exclaimed. “Your jewels are here, old lady—in this very room! And if I have to pull the darned place to pieces I’ll have ’em for you this very night.”
“But—but”—stammering—“I don’t understand—”
“Lock the door quickly,” interrupted the girl, “we don’t want anyone in. And don’t ask me any questions for a few minutes, for the love of Mike.”
She was across the room in a moment and regardless of her dainty frock was down on her hands and knees tapping on the walls and the floor in the immediate neighborhood of the safe. As for the duchess she could only stand and watch her, speechless.
“I’m afraid we’ve got to move this chest of drawers!” exclaimed Daphne suddenly, jumping up and pointing to the big mahogany piece that stood immediately under the picture that had hidden the safe. “Can you give me a hand, my dear?”
“Won’t we need some help?”
Daphne made an impatient gesture.
“For Heaven’s sake, no! There’ll be enough scandal as it is presently.”
They got it away at last by dint of extensive shoving and pushing. And then Daphne was down on her hands and knees again pulling back the carpet—and suddenly she gave a little cry of triumph.
“Great heavens!” exclaimed the duchess.
No more than that. She simply stood there staring with bulging eyes. At her side, Daphne Wrayne on her knees, rippling delight in every line of her pretty face. And before her a trap door pushed back, a yawning black cavity, and at the bottom of it in a heap—the Duchess of Arlington’s jewel cases!
“Montarthur was positive,” said Daphne as she and the duchess sat together over the fire, “that the burglary was not done through the window. And the moment I came to examine the window I was equally sure.
“But both of us were led astray by the fact that from twelve o’clock at midnight until six thirty the next evening it was possible for anyone to enter this room of yours. All the same Montarthur missed the full significance of two facts which both my colleagues and I spotted.
“The first was that both Lady Castlebrough and yourself possess very famous jewels. The second, that the professor showed you both over the house himself, and in each case dilated on the advantages of the safe. I’m not saying I suspected the professor from that moment. But I do say that he then became a person who had to be cleared.
“Supposing that the professor had duplicate keys of the house and safe—as he easily could have. What easier than for him to use them? He knows the whole place.
“If by any chance he is discovered in the house, it’s his own house, and he can bring up a hundred excuses to cover himself.”
She paused a moment to light the inevitable cigarette and then went on:
“And the professor came further under my direct notice from the fact that apparently only he knew that you were going to occupy this room. And this was when he made his big mistake.
“He argued that by cutting the wires outside your bedroom only, we should immediately say after seeing the footprints, ‘That’s how the burglar entered.’
“Instead of which, I said, after examining everything, ‘Those footprints were obviously a blind—and what the cut wires tell me is that only a person with a very intimate knowledge of the house could have done this.’ Valuable deduction, my dear!”
“I don’t wonder the Adjusters are a success,” murmured the duchess admiringly. “Daph, you’re simply wonderful.”
“Frankly,” admitted the girl, though the pleasure was showing in her face, “I don’t agree. I happen to have a logical mind and that’s why I took this game up. You had only been in residence a day, duchess! No one without an intimate knowledge of you and your movements could have known in what room you were.
“Montarthur had the records of all the servants from A to Z. It was no use my going over the old ground again. The Adjusters are only called in when the police methods—darned thorough methods, too, let me tell you—have failed.
“The only reason, believe me, why we discover the seemingly impossible is because that’s all there is left for us to look for! It isn’t such marvelous cleverness, duchess! The mere fact of the police being baffled tells us that only the really fantastic can find the solution to the problem.”
“But how did you get to this amazing solution, Daphne?” queried the other. “What gave you the idea of that safe?”
“As you know,” answered the girl thoughtfully, “I was up against a dead end, right until the phone bell rang. It was one of my colleagues who called me up and this is what he told.”
She leaned forward in her chair checking off the points on her slim fingers.
“The professor canceled his departure on the Saturday morning train—took another reservation on Tuesday morning and went by it. The disappearance of your jewels happened some time after Monday night.”
“The professor, incidentally staying at the Continental, left his hotel on Monday evening at nine o’clock and arrived back about twelve thirty that night. My colleague trots off to Ascot in his car. Makes inquiries.
“The porter remembers the professor traveling up on that particular night—knows him well by sight—and on that particular ten forty train. Quaint, isn’t it? Why had he come down? Where had he been? What had he been doing?”
As she paused, smiling at the duchess, the latter drew a deep breath.
“But even then that was an hour and a half before I went to bed!” she said.
“Quite so,” replied the girl, “and that proved obviously that the professor didn’t go down to get into his house. Then why did he go? Obviously to plant those footmarks and make you think positively that some one had been in the house.
“Then I said to myself: ‘Obviously he never entered the house at all, and if he didn’t, where are the jewels?’ And then in a moment, duchess, the idea came out and hit me between the eyes. If you put something in a box, shut the box, open it again and find that something’s gone, then obviously one of two things has happened.
“Either somebody’s taken it out, or—it’s never been taken out at all! And that’s why I left the table in such a hurry to go and test my theory. I took an empty jewel case of my own, shoved it in the safe, locked it, reopened it and—it had gone! The whole thing was clear.
“The professor is an ingenious crook playing for enormous stakes. He tried for the Castlebrough jewels and failed, just because Lady Castlebrough happens to distrust safes. You don’t and—well, he nearly got away with it!
“When Montarthur comes to take that safe to pieces, he’ll find, I fancy, that it’s a masterpiece of ingenuity and shows the amazingly clever mechanical brain of our learned friend. He will find that the turning of the key releases the bottom of the safe, the contents slide through, and the bottom comes up again.
“It’s really a masterpiece of construction. I’ve examined the inside of the safe pretty thoroughly and even now I know I can’t detect exactly how it’s done!”
She stretched her slender white arms above her head, yawning a little. Then:
“Of course, I’ve done my part of the job,” she said. “You asked me for your jewels and you’ve got ’em. Naturally I’m now turning the whole business over to Montarthur and he can do what he pleases.
“Though if the professor chooses to swear, as he probably will swear, that he knows nothing whatsoever about this ‘peculiarity’ of his safe, Montarthur’s not going to have a cakewalk to convict him.
“Mind you, I haven’t the slightest doubt that he did it, but it’s going to be purely circumstantial. If I were defending him I think I could make out quite a good case for him. Just shows, duchess,” with a smile, “what clever people we Adjusters really are!
“All we do is to find the stolen stuff, give it to the rightful owners and get all the kudos. These other poor fish have to get convictions—and that’s an appalling business when once you start!”