“Have the police been here before?” was his first question.
Simmons, as he turned out to be named, said that they had. The constable on the beat had noticed that the front door was ajar about five o’clock that morning, and had promptly roused the household. He, Simmons, had been first on the spot, and had begun by supposing that his master had omitted to make the door fast on his return. He knew that the doctor had gone out overnight, though he had no idea where. He went out pretty often, and was generally rather late in coming home. However, the policeman had insisted on his going to see if Dr. Weathered was upstairs; and he had found his room empty and the bed undisturbed.
On that, the officer had come in to search the premises, beginning with the doctor’s consulting-room, in which there was a safe. There the first sight that met their eyes was the door of the safe standing wide open. The key was in the keyhole, with the whole bunch, including the latchkey, dangling from it.
“And what had been taken from the safe?” Tarleton asked, calling my attention with a significant glance.
“Nothing,” was the surprising answer. “I mean nothing as far as we could see. We opened the drawers in which the doctor used to put his fees till he paid them into the bank, and they were full, one full of notes and the other of silver. The doctor’s lowest fee was three guineas,” the doctor’s man added with some pride.
“Take us to that room,” my chief commanded.
Simmons obeyed without hesitation. My heart was beating so loudly in my ears that I could not overcome the childish fear that it might be heard by others, in spite of my medical knowledge to the contrary. I fell back and let my companions go into the room without me while I collected myself before joining them.
Yet there was nothing in Dr. Weathered’s professional sanctum to inspire dismay.
The room in which he received his patients was as bright and as well appointed as everything else in the establishment. A handsome walnut writing-table was lightly strewn with medical books and papers, relieved by a handsome china bowl full of roses. The patient’s chair was luxuriously cushioned with yellow silk, and the doctor’s own chair was a handsome one upholstered in tooled morocco leather. There was only one bookcase, and its appearance was more suited to a drawing-room than a professional man’s study. The frame was richly inlaid with ornamental woods, and the glass doors were protected by gilt wires. A small marble group of Eros and Psyche stood on the top, flanked by Chinese dragons. Elsewhere the walls of the room were hung with charming water-colours, most of them of a rather sensuous description, depicting youths and maidens bathing in pools, and scenes of love and jealousy.
Tarleton took in every detail with one of those swift, searching looks of his which seemed to penetrate to some inner meaning beneath the surface of all he saw. Finally, his eye rested on the corner in which a safe about three feet high, painted to look like oxydized silver, was clamped on a supporting stand of ebony.