There is in that room a large Florentine cabinet of tortoise-shell and brass-work; the key of the drawers thereof is on his watch-chain; yet he perceives that the drawers are all open, their contents are strewn about, and stooping down over them is Critchett.
Critchett’s back is unmistakable; it has as much character in it as the profile of Cæsar or Napoleon.
Bertram walks noiselessly over the thick carpets, and touches him on the shoulder.
“You!—a common thief!”
Critchett stumbles to his feet, pulls himself erect rather nervously, and faces his employer. In his right hand is a pearl necklace.
“I beg pardon, sir,” he murmurs. “I thought you had gone to Mr. Domville’s. I was coming down with the valise.”
Bertram takes the pearls out of his grasp; he has grown much paler than his nefarious valet. He is cut to the heart.
“A common thief—you!” he repeats. The Et tu Brute had not more pathetic reproval in it.
Critchett in the interval has recovered his self-possession, and what more vulgar persons would call his cheek.
“Excuse me, sir. There aren’t such a thing as theft. What is called theft is only an over-violent readjustment of unfairly divided values. I’ve read it in the Age to Come.”