“It is three times a week the same,” Quest explained, whipping the cloth from the basket. “No word has been sent to alter anything.”
The Inspector pushed him hurriedly in the direction of the street.
“You run along home,” he said, “and tell your master that he had better leave off delivering goods here for the present.”
Quest went off, grumbling. He walked with the peculiar waddle affected by young Dutchmen of a certain class, and was soon out of sight round the corner of the street. French opened the door with a masterkey and secured it carefully, leaving one of his men to guard it. He searched the rooms on the ground floor and finally ascended to Quest’s study. The Professor was still enjoying his cigar.
“Say, where’s Quest?” the Inspector asked promptly.
“Have you let him out already?” the Professor replied, in a tone of mild surprise. “I thought he was in the Tombs prison.”
The Inspector pressed on without answering. Every room in the house was ransacked. Presently he came back to the room where the Professor was still sitting. His usually good-humoured face was a little clouded.
“Professor,” he began—“What’s that, Miles?”
A plain-clothes man from the street had come hurrying into the room.
“Say, Mr. French,” he reported, “our fellows have got hold of a newsie down in the street, who was coming along way round the back and saw two men enter this house by the side entrance, half-an-hour ago. One he described exactly as the Professor here. The other, without a doubt, was Quest.”