The Paternoster Ruby

by Charles Edmonds Walk

"What did they look like?" I asked.

Stodger shook his head. "Bushes too thick. No leaves; but they would n't come close enough for me to get a good look. H'm. Watching the house, all right."

The matter was serious enough, in all conscience. Our incessant vigilance was most certainly justified by the pertinacity of these mysterious prowlers, for as long as they surreptitiously sought to enter the house, my belief that the ruby lay hid somewhere beneath its roof was in a way confirmed.

Stodger was sagely nodding his head at me.

"To-night," he said, with meaning. "Bet anything you like."

"To-night," I thoughtfully echoed. "It would not surprise me in the least."

Although a close watch was maintained throughout the remainder of the day, we saw no more of the elusive "shadows." My arrival, manifestly, had frightened them away.

I put in a portion of the time until nightfall going carefully over the old house again, from cellar to roof. My purpose now was to ascertain whether there were any secret passages or concealed openings whereby we might be surprised; and my labors convinced me that there were none. The face which Genevieve saw at the alcove curtains could be easily accounted for, since, with the exception of Stodger, who was in the second story, and the officer in the lower hall, everybody in the house was assembled in the library, and, of course, completely absorbed in the inquest. It had been an easy matter to open one of the lower windows, or even one of the rear or side doors, and enter the house.

I found that the walls were all of an even, normal thickness, and there were no spaces between floors or walls for which I did not satisfactorily account. I also kept a watchful eye for the prototype of the designs on the cipher, but discovered nothing that was at all like them.

Otherwise the day proved to be wholly uneventful. I spent much time in consideration of my case, naturally; but this exercise yielded nothing more conclusive than that Alfred Fluette's place in it was assuming larger and larger proportions as time went by.