"His name's Ritter. He is merely a tracer, not a fully skilled draughtsman. He is quite a decent young fellow, and I have had him two years. I don't consider him particularly smart, or he would have learned a little more of his business by this time. But I don't see the least reason to suspect him. As I said before, I can't reasonably suspect anybody."
"Very well; we will get to Chancery Lane now, if you please, and you can tell me more as we go."
"I have a cab waiting. What else can I tell you?"
"I understand the position to be succinctly this: The drawings were in the office when you arrived. Nobody came out, and nobody went in; and yet they vanished. Is that so?"
"That is so. When I say that absolutely nobody came in, of course I except the postman. He brought a couple of letters during the morning. I mean that absolutely nobody came past the barrier in the outer office—the usual thing, you know, like a counter, with a frame of ground glass over it."
"I quite understand that. But I think you said that the drawings were in a drawer in your own room—not the outer office, where the draughtsmen are, I presume?"
"That is the case. It is an inner room, or, rather, a room parallel with the other, and communicating with it; just as your own room is, which we have just left."
"But, then, you say you never left your office, and yet the drawings vanished—apparently by some unseen agency—while you were there in the room?"
"Let me explain more clearly." The cab was bowling smoothly along the Strand, and the engineer took out a pocket-book and pencil. "I fear," he proceeded, "that I am a little confused in my explanation—I am naturally rather agitated. As you will see presently, my offices consist of three rooms, two at one side of a corridor, and the other opposite—thus." He made a rapid pencil sketch.