“Where did you get hold of this cock-and-bull story, Holmes?” he asked.
The Chief Constable frowned.
“From a perfectly reliable source,” he replied. “I have no doubt that Rawson is honest, but I shall want the names of all your servants. I shall also require to interview them all.”
Sir Bertram smiled.
“Lord love us, you don’t suppose I want to stand in the way of your duty, Holmes?” he said. “When Rawson comes back, you shall have them all up, one by one, and put them through the mill. By-the-by, there was nothing much stolen, was there? I understand the burglar had only tumbled out a coffer full of manuscripts.”
“The manuscripts themselves are missing,” Major Holmes confided.
“I have seen the lot,” Sir Bertram observed carelessly. “Some of them were curious. There wasn’t one of them worth sixpence, intrinsically. Endacott was supposed to have one telling us all about the treasure in my Buddha heads, but it never materialised.”
Rawson returned in due course, preceded by the inspector.
“The door is properly locked on the inside, sir,” the latter announced. “There are no evidences of any one having used that way out into the grounds lately.”
“So that’s that,” Sir Bertram observed, with a little shrug of the shoulders.