"No," replied Simmons, staring. "They are in his dressing-room."
"Under lock and key?"
"No, indeed. There is no need to lock things up in this house, Sergeant!"
"All right," said the Sergeant. Just take me along to the billiard-room, will you?"
The butler looked a little mystified, but raised no objection, merely opening the pantry door for the Sergeant to pass through into the passage.
A writing-table set in one of the windows in the billiard-room bore upon it a leather blotter, a cut-glass inkstand, and a bronze paper-weight, surmounted by the nude figure of a woman. The Sergeant had seen the paper-weight before, but he picked it up now, and inspected it with more interest than he had displayed when Neville Fletcher had first handed it to him.
The butler coughed. "Mr. Neville will have his joke, Sergeant."
"Oh, so you heard about that joke, did you?"
"Yes, Sergeant. Very remiss of Mr. Neville. He is a light-hearted gentleman, I am afraid."
The Sergeant grunted, and began to coax the paperweight into his pocket. He was interrupted in his somewhat difficult task by a soft, slurred voice from the window, which said: "But you mustn't play with that, you know. Now they'll find nothing but your fingerprints on it, and that might turn out to be very awkward for you."