‘I suppose he couldn’t. But whoever did it couldn’t have been an utter stranger.’
‘Do I understand from that that you suggest the culprit or culprits are people who were employed here?’
‘No, I don’t suggest that. But it stands to reason that anyone undertaking a deed of this kind would be careful to make himself acquainted with the building.’
‘And how do you think he did that?’
‘You know as well as I do that the place is open to the public. What is there to prevent anyone studying the place?’
‘Nothing whatever, so far as the public part of it goes. But, unless with the aid of a confederate, I do not quite see how anyone could become acquainted with those parts where the public are not admitted.’
‘Well, Mr. Danevitch,’ said Anna, with a decisiveness which was meant to clinch the argument, ‘I am not an expert like you, nor do I know anything at all about the matter, therefore don’t bother me with any more questions. I am troubled enough, and have enough on my mind without this affair. I want to forget it.’
‘I make every allowance for you,’ replied Danevitch. ‘I quite understand that your feelings are lacerated, but I thought it was within the bounds of possibility that you might be able to throw some light on the matter. However, I will not disturb you further, but take my leave.’
Anna showed him out with a sigh of relief, and she shut the door with a bang that indicated too plainly how glad she was to get rid of him. At this stage, Danevitch writes, he felt in a quandary. There were certain signs that suggested probabilities, but it was not easy to determine just then whether or not the signs were anything more than shadows, by which he might be misled. Speculation and theory were all he had to guide him, and he was only too well aware that the most astute of reasoners is apt to be misled. What necessarily concerned him was the danger of being led out of the true track by a false sign. He was not indifferent, of course, to the fact that he had made some progress—that is to say, he had determined pretty conclusively how the thieves had left the Treasury buildings when once they had secured their booty. But what was of still greater importance was to discover how they got in. Could he solve that part of the problem, he felt sure it would give him many points.
It was remarkable about Danevitch that, while he was often mistrustful about his own instincts, he seldom erred. He had made human nature so close a study that the person who, as the saying is, could have thrown dust in his eyes would have had to have been preternaturally clever. He maintained, and proved it over and over again, that the face was so certain an index to what was passing in the mind that every thought of the brain was communicated instantly to the features, which indicated it as unmistakably as a delicately-balanced needle notes the slightest current of electricity. Of course, it was necessary to understand these face-signs. That in itself is a science. Indeed, the power to understand it is a gift, and he who fully possesses it is what is termed to-day ‘a thought-reader.’ Danevitch did not call himself that, but he possessed the power in a marked degree, nevertheless; and no one could be indifferent to the extraordinary strength and power of his eyes. When he looked at you, you felt somehow as if he was looking right into your brain. Mr. Gladstone is said to have that peculiar eye, and it can readily be understood that anyone with guilty knowledge having to meet the piercing gaze of such an eye is almost sure to betray himself by face-signs, which to the expert are full of meaning. Danevitch had brought this study to such perfection that it proved invaluable to him, and often afforded him a clue which otherwise he would never have got. Another strong trait in his character was the persistency with which he stuck to an idea when once he had thought it out. That, again, was largely responsible for the success that attended his efforts in the art of solving criminal problems. Of course, his ideas were generally very sound ones, and the result of much cogitation. He never jumped to hasty conclusions.