“Well, what do you think?” Mr. Schoofs replied with some impatience.
“It certainly does look like it,” French admitted slowly. Already his active brain was building up a theory, but he wanted to get the other’s views. “You are suggesting, I take it, that Vanderkemp may have been concerned in the crime?”
Schoofs shook his head decidedly.
“I am suggesting nothing of the kind,” he retorted. “That’s not my job. The thing merely struck me as peculiar.”
“No, no,” French answered smoothly, “I have not expressed myself clearly. Neither of us is making any accusation. We are simply consulting together in a private, and, I hope, a friendly way, each anxious only to find out the truth. Any suggestion may be helpful. If I make the suggestion that Mr. Vanderkemp is the guilty man in order to enable us to discuss the possibility, it does not follow that either of us believes it to be true, still less that I should act on it.”
“I am aware of that, but I don’t make any such suggestion.”
“Then I do,” French declared, “simply as a basis for discussion. Let us suppose then, purely for argument’s sake, that Mr. Vanderkemp decides to make some of the firm’s wealth his own. He is present when the stones are being put into the safe, and in some way when Mr. Duke’s back is turned, he takes an impression of the key. He crosses to London, either finds Gething in the office or is interrupted by him, murders the old man, takes the diamonds, and clears out. What do you think of that?”
“What about the letter?”
“Well, that surely fits in? Mr. Vanderkemp must leave this office in some way which won’t arouse your suspicion or cause you to ask questions of the London office. What better way than by forging the letter?”
Mr. Schoofs swore for the second time. “If he has done that,” he cried hotly, “let him hang! I’ll do everything I can, Inspector, to help you to find out, and that not only on general grounds, but for old Gething’s sake, for whom I had a sincere regard.”