"Upon my word, Mr. Shears, I should find it difficult to tell you! Perhaps we just thought it amusing to have a hiding-place of this kind."
"Did nobody know of it?"
"Nobody."
"Except, of course, the thief," objected Shears. "But for that, he would not have taken the trouble to steal the Jewish lamp."
"Obviously. But how could he know of it, seeing that it was by an accident that we discovered the secret mechanism of the lamp?"
"The same accident may have revealed it to somebody else: a servant ... a visitor to the house.... But let us continue: have you informed the police?"
"Certainly. The examining-magistrate has made his inquiry. The journalistic detectives attached to all the big newspapers have made theirs. But, as I wrote to you, it does not seem as though the problem had the least chance of ever being solved."
Shears rose, went to the window, inspected the casement, the balcony, the balustrade, employed his lens to study the two scratches on the stone and asked M. d'Imblevalle to take him down to the garden.
When they were outside, Shears simply sat down in a wicker chair and contemplated the roof of the house with a dreamy eye. Then he suddenly walked toward two little wooden cases with which, in order to preserve the exact marks, they had covered the holes which the uprights of the ladder had left in the ground, below the balcony. He removed the cases, went down on his knees and, with rounded back and his nose six inches from the ground, searched and took his measurements. He went through the same performance along the railing, but more quickly.
That was all.