Sir William stared at him, and then shook his head. `You don't understand,' he replied at length. `And I can't: explain. I wanted no trouble. I wanted this great thing, a secret between Poe and myself, for myself. For nobody else to see unless I chose.'
A sort of pale fierceness was in his face; the orator was at a loss for words to explain something powerful and intangible.
`At any rate, Robertson is a man of honour. He promised, and he will keep; his, promise, even though he urged me to do as you say, Hadley. But, naturally, 'I refused… Gentlemen, the manuscript was what I thought; it was even better.!
'And what was it?' Dr Fell asked, rather sharply.
Sir William opened his lips, and then hesitated.
`One moment, gentlemen. It is not that I do not — ah — trust you. Of course not. Ha! But so much I have told openly, to strangers. Excuse me. I prefer to keep my secret a bit longer. Well enough to tell you what it was when you have heard my story of the theft, and decide whether you can help me.'
There was a curious expression on Dr Fell's face; not contemptuous, not humorous, not bored, but a mixture of the three.
`Suppose, you tell us,' he suggested, `the facts of the theft, and whom you suspect!
'It was taken from my house in Berkeley Square at sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday — morning. Adjoining my bedroom upstairs I have a dressing-room which I use a good deal as a study. The greater part of my collection is, of course, downstairs in the library and my study there. I had been examining the manuscript in my upstairs study on Saturday afternoon.. '
`Was it locked up?' Hadley inquired.