While he was speaking, the door opened and Soden, the hotelkeeper, excitedly entered the room.
"Here, come across the road, quick. Come and have a look at it. Hang me if this doesn't beat cock-fighting. They've stuck up the pub and cleared off with the till and all the takings," he exclaimed.
He led the way to his hotel, the front door of which was open.
"As I found it," he said as he pulled it to until it was ajar. "When we closed for the night it was locked and bolted. Look at it."
Durham carefully examined it.
"Opened by an expert burglar," he said quietly.
"No one but a master of the craft could have done it so neatly. Show me the till."
Soden led them into the bar. The till, empty, was on the floor; every cupboard door was forced and the place in chaos.
As they stood looking at the wreck, voices sounded outside and other men trooped in.
"Here, I say," the first-comer cried. "Here's a pretty go. Someone has been in my place and cleared every pennypiece out of it and—hullo!" he exclaimed as he looked at the state of Soden's bar, one of the show places of the town under ordinary conditions. "You seem to have had them too, and there's a mob outside, all with the same story."