"Your pardon, Mr. Alan," said Caw, coming forward, "but it is necessary to ask you one question. How did you get into the house?"
The young man laughed. "I suppose you don't think it worth while locking doors in these unsophisticated parts. After I had rung twice, and was wondering what was going to happen to me, I found that the outer door was unfastened and that the inner door was not locked. So I came in and made myself at home, unwilling to disturb—What's the matter. Caw? And you, doctor? Why, Miss Handyside, what have I said?"
But none of the gravely concerned faces was looking in his direction.
With a heavy sigh Caw went over to the writing table, stopped and drew out the deep drawer on the right.
For a moment or two there was no sound save that of the storm. Then, with a gesture of hopelessness, Caw slowly raised himself.
"Yes," he said, in a small, bitter voice, "it is gone!"
CHAPTER XII
Alan Craig, as he afterwards stated, had entered Grey House at a quarter before midnight; the clock had attracted his attention as soon as he lit the candles. The candles, he had noticed, had been used not long previously, for the wicks were softish, and he had been aware of an odour of tobacco, not stale, in the atmosphere of the study. These two little discoveries had been sufficient to end the incipient idea induced by the stillness and chilliness that the house might be temporarily uninhabited.
Less than half an hour prior to Alan's arrival, the man Marvel left by unbolting the outer door. He had entered by cutting through a lightly barred window at the back, and would have retired by the same way but for the fact that he had wounded one of his hands rather severely, and could not risk disturbing his rough and hasty bandage.
But though injured and drenched to the skin, and facing a long tramp in the vilest of weather, he turned from the gates of Grey House in a fairly cheerful temper. He had done the job and done it easily. The Green Box reposed in his suit case, and would fetch four hundred pounds on delivery. Only four hundred pounds? Well, Mr. Bullard had named that sum, but perhaps—and Mr. Marvel grinned against the gale—Mr. Bullard was not going to get off quite so cheaply. To Marvel's sort, possession is not just a miserable nine points of the law: it is all the law and as much of the profits as trickery can extract.