"No, really I can't say I did. He seemed to behave much as any traveller or agent might."
"Well, what I noticed was the fact that as soon as he entered the place he put his walking-stick into the umbrella stand, over there by the door, close by where he stood; a most unusual thing for a casual caller to do, before even knowing whether you were in. This made me watch him closely. I perceived, with increased interest, that the stick was exactly of the same kind and pattern as one already standing there; also a curious thing. I kept my eyes carefully on those sticks, and was all the more interested and edified to see, when he left, that he took the other stick—not the one he came with—from the stand, and carried it away, leaving his own behind. I might have followed him, but I decided that more could be learnt by staying—as, in fact, proved to be the case. This, by-the-bye, is the stick he carried away with him. I took the liberty of fetching it back from Westminster, because I conceive it to be Ritter's property."
Hewitt produced the stick. It was an ordinary, thick Malacca cane, with a buckhorn handle and a silver band. Hewitt bent it across his knee, and laid it on the table.
"Yes," Dixon answered, "that is Ritter's stick. I think I have often seen it in the stand. But what in the world——"
"One moment; I'll just fetch the stick Mirsky left behind." And Hewitt stepped across the corridor.
He returned with another stick, apparently an exact facsimile of the other, and placed it by the side of the other.
"When your assistants went into the inner room, I carried this stick off for a minute or two. I knew it was not Worsfold's, because there was an umbrella there with his initial on the handle. Look at this."
Martin Hewitt gave the handle a twist, and rapidly unscrewed it from the top. Then it was seen that the stick was a mere tube of very thin metal, painted to appear like a Malacca cane.
"It was plain at once that this was no Malacca cane—it wouldn't bend. Inside it I found your tracings, rolled up tightly. You can get a marvellous quantity of thin tracing-paper into a small compass by tight rolling."
"And this—this was the way they were brought back!" the engineer exclaimed. "I see that, clearly. But how did they get away? That's as mysterious as ever."