"It was locked. They then used a skeleton key, entered, and knowing just the proportion of chloroform Miss Wardour could bear, they administered it carefully, secured the booty without further trouble, and made their escape without detection."
No remarks from his listeners. They sit amazed, incredulous, admiring, yet speechless.
"Now, I see I had better prove my statements," goes on Mr. Bathurst, looking from one to another with a smile of easy superiority. "Miss Wardour is beginning to think that I do belong to the godmother species, and yet, it's all very simple."
"No doubt," retorts Doctor Heath, drily; "yet we are willing to endure your simple explanation."
"I say the robbers came by the river," continues the detective. "Before sundown I sauntered along the river bank; to-morrow I can show you traces, indistinct but sufficient, to prove that a boat has been drawn out of the water, and overturned upon the grass; keel, prow and oar-locks have left their traces. There is also the print of a clubbed and muffled oar, above the water mark, where an impatient hand has pushed off the boat. Here is blunder number one. All these traces might have been avoided or obliterated."
He pauses a moment, but his listeners sit, a very respectful audience, and are inclined neither to question or argue. So he continues:
"I said that the robbers entered purposely at that particular window, and because they were familiar with the interior of the house. Now I have examined all of the windows of this floor, and I find that a person unfamiliar with the inside of the building, and not aware which of the upper rooms were occupied, would have chosen differently. The dining-room windows, from without, would seem much more inviting; still more, the drawing-room windows. Naturally, our burglars would select a window which was tolerably easy of access, and where they knew there was the least chance of being overheard and observed from above. Now, the dining-room windows are close to the ground, and the awnings cut off all chance for observation from above; but—they knew that Miss Wardour's coachman sleeps in a small room just in the rear of the dining-room."
This was too much for Mrs. Aliston.
"Now, how did you find that out?" she asks, with staring eyes.
"From my friend, the gardener," he replies. "Oh, I am quite familiar with things about here. The very best place for a burglar to operate would be these windows," motioning toward the front of the drawing room; "he could stand in comfort on the lower balcony, screened by the upper, and cut away at shutters and panes; but, our burglars knew that Miss Wardour's rooms were directly above, and that Miss Wardour is a light sleeper. Now, the very place that would be shunned by an unfamiliar robber, is this very library window; it is higher than the others, has a little thicket of shrubs just beneath it, and is overlooked from above, being near an angle, by six windows. But our burglars knew that not one of those rooms to which the six windows belong, are occupied; and that the servants all sleep on the opposite side of the house. Now, then, I say that the robbers knew Miss Wardour's sensitiveness to the effects of chloroform; how else can we account for the fact of their giving just enough to cause her to sleep, and not enough to cause any unpleasant after effects. We can call it a coincidence, but it is one not likely to happen; Doctor Heath knows that."