The committee expressed their great regrets at not being able to secure my partner's services, but said they would tell us their story in full, and if, after hearing it, I thought I could be of service to them, they would like to have me go out there.
He listened to their recital of the numerous burglaries, robberies from the person, and so forth, with great patience, each of us asking a few, but a very few questions, at different points of their narrative. Long before they got to the end of the doleful story, and after having asked not over a half dozen questions at most, my partner, I clearly saw from his manner, had formed his theory, and I saw that he thought it an easy case to work up.
When the committee had finished, my partner said to them, "Gentlemen, excuse us for a few minutes. I wish to consult my partner," and rising, stepped into the next room, whither I followed him, shutting the door behind me, when my partner, clapping his hand with an air of victory on my shoulder, whispered to me, "An easy case, old boy, eh? I suppose you've worked up the theory by this time? Don't you see straight through it?"
"No, I confess I don't see through it all; but I've got some glimpses of light."
"Well," said he, "I've told you about that San Antonio case, which first started me into the detective business—haven't I?"
"Yes; but I don't see the bearing of that on this exactly!"
"Don't see? Why there was only one peculiar feature about that, and there's the like in this case, if I am not mistaken; that is, these robberies are perpetrated, not by old, skilful burglars, but by raw hands, comparatively, who reside right about there, and are probably 'respectable citizens'—teach Sunday-school, likely enough."
With this from my partner, which struck me then as the true theory, we analyzed the stories of the committee in the light of it, and became perfectly assured that the theory was right, and were about proceeding to the next room to talk further with the committee, when my partner said, "See here, we mustn't tell these men our theory. Who knows but some of them,—O, that can't be; they are too old, too clumsy, not alert enough, and too honest too, for that,—but some of their relations, their sons or nephews, perhaps, are the villains who are doing all this work! No, we mustn't tell them." So we hit upon what we would say.
Stepping into the room where the committee sat, looking as sedate and sombre, by the way, as if they were judges sitting upon some complex trial for arson, murder, and what not, they looked up, and one of them asked, "Well, gentlemen, what conclusion have you come to?"
My partner quietly replied, "We have worked out our theory."