“Your watch!” I repeated, remembering, suddenly, what I had heard of his house being robbed. “Was your house really entered? Strigoff said so.”
“Yes,” he answered. “When I reached home, I found the servants in a great commotion. My house had been entered by some one, a quantity of silver taken, and a gold watch, which I prized very highly, because—because——” he hesitated, then went on: “It is an American watch, made in Waltham, and, you know, they are valuable. It was Nicol’s. He brought it home with him, and it has ‘Ridgefield’ on it, and the date when he bought it.”
“How came you by it?” I asked, rather sharply, and he replied: “Just as I came by the house and the other articles. All fair, as I once told you. The Patoffs were not cheated.”
Here was a new complication, with Nicol in it. I remembered the watch perfectly. It was bought at a jeweler’s in Ridgefield, who kept only the best wares. Nicol had seemed rather proud of it and consulted it frequently if the day was hot, the lessons hard and his pupils stupid and anxious to be free.
“And you suspect Carl Zimosky?” I asked, in an unsteady voice.
“Yes, we always suspect him. He is what you Americans call a bad egg—into one scrape as soon as he is out of another.”
“And I let him go!” I said. “He begged so hard and looked so scared; but I’ll try and get the watch for you if he has it.”
“You!” and he laughed derisively. “Will you turn detective, and go into the dives after him? He eludes us every time.”
“No,” I answered, thinking of the tired-faced woman, his aunt, whom they called Ursula. I should work through her, but I did not say so, as I did not wish to bring her into the trouble if I could help it.
“I do not know for sure that he has the watch, but I am sure you cannot get it if he has,” the gendarme said.