The Cheyne mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

The safe was built into the wall in his own sanctum, “the study,” as his mother persisted in calling it. It had been taken over with the house when Mrs. Cheyne bought the little estate. As Cheyne now entered he saw that its doors were standing open. A tall man in the uniform of a sergeant of police was stooping over it. He turned as he heard the newcomer’s step.

“Good-evening sir,” he said in an impressive tone. “This is a bad business.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know, sergeant,” Cheyne answered easily. “If no one has been hurt and nothing has been stolen it might have been worse.”

The sergeant stared at him with some disfavor.

“There’s not much but what might have been worse,” he observed oracularly. “But we’re not sure yet that nothing’s been stolen. Nobody knows what was in this here safe, except maybe yourself. I’d be glad if you’d have a look and see if anything is gone.”

There was very little in the safe and it did not take Cheyne many seconds to go through it. The papers were tossed about—he could swear someone had turned them over—but none seemed to have been removed. The small packet of Treasury notes was intact and a number of gold and silver medals, won in athletic contests, were all in evidence.

“Nothing missing there, sergeant,” he declared when he had finished.

His eye wandered round the room. There was not much of value in it; one or two silver bowls—athletic trophies also, a small gold clock of Indian workmanship, a pair of high-power prism binoculars and a few ornaments were about all that could be turned into money. But all these were there, undisturbed. It was true that the glass door of a locked bookcase had been broken to enable the bolt to be unfastened and the doors opened, but none of the books seemed to have been touched.

“What do you think they were after, sir?” the sergeant queried. “Was there any jewelry in the house that they might have heard of?”

“My mother has a few trinkets, but I scarcely think you could dignify them by the name of jewelry. I suppose these precious burglars have left no kind of clue?”