So saying, he laid Emily's watch, pocketbook and brooch in her lap. Dumfounded, she felt of her bodice, where these articles should be. The neck-clasp was missing, the watch-pocket empty. McCausland had picked her pockets while they were conversing.
"Set a thief to catch a thief," said the detective, still smiling, but raising his hat with respect. Emily smiled herself, less at the prank he had played than because she thought she had good reasons to be cheerful. But she did not communicate them to Richard McCausland, alias William Dobbs.
It happened that her course through town took her by Shagarach's office. It was nearly 7:30, but there was a light in his window still, and an impulse seized her to convey the glad tidings of her successful journey to the lawyer. So she picked her way across the street and tripped light-heartedly up the stairs.
"You bring good news, Miss Barlow," said Shagarach, a little heavily. He was standing at the window with his hands in his pockets and his back turned, but there was power in his very carelessness. If he could not pick pockets he could master men.
"How could you know?" she asked.
"I simply heard you coming. There is mood in a footstep," he answered, facing her and offering a chair, while he sat himself at the table with his arms folded expectantly. Through the open window where he had been standing Emily felt the cool evening air, dim with dew it held in suspension; and far away the hill-built capitol of the city, printed darkly against the blood-orange sunset, seemed lifted into the uppermost heavens, at an immeasurable height from earth. Had this been the object of Shagarach's contemplation?
"What is the result?"
"Bertha is found again."
"At Arnold's?"
"At Arnold's."