His investigations on this subject completed, Lane dispatched a brief telegram to Rosabelle asking her to call at his office. A few minutes after its receipt, she was seated in his room feverishly awaiting his news.
“It promises to be a deeper mystery than I thought, Miss Sheldon. There has been some very clever and deeply thought-out work here. I have identified the finger-prints, they are those of a well-known professional thief named Thomas, known amongst his confederates as ‘Tubby’ Thomas. He is an expert safe-breaker, the cleverest in England.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. “An expert safe-breaker!” she repeated joyfully. “Does one want to pursue the inquiry any further? Is it not obvious who was the thief?”
But the next moment came the slow words which fell like ice on her heart.
“Unfortunately, the mystery is deepened, not solved. The finger-prints are those of ‘Tubby’ Thomas, for finger-prints never lie. But ‘Tubby’ Thomas himself has for the last two years been serving a sentence for a similar offence in Dartmoor, and he is still there.”
CHAPTER V
ROSABELLE AND LANE CONFER
Dazed as she was, cast in a moment from a feeling of elation into one of bitter disappointment, she saw the point at once. If the criminal known as “Tubby” Thomas was safe under lock and key, he could not have been the thief. They were as far from the solution of the mystery as ever, in spite of those tell-tale finger-prints which, according to orthodox belief, never lied.
Gideon Lane was bitterly disappointed too, but he had suffered so many checks in his time that he never allowed his fortitude to desert him. When he discovered those finger-prints he really thought the game was in his hands, and that, with the aid of Scotland Yard, he could put his hand on the actual thief, as he could have done had they been those of a criminal actively pursuing his nefarious career. But the incarceration of the man Thomas provided an impasse.
Narrowing the issue to the only two men who were supposed to be acquainted with the complicated mechanism of this wonderful safe, he had thought very deeply, twisting and turning about in his keen and alert mind the possibilities that suggested themselves.
Taking the young man himself first. According to the flattering report of Rosabelle, he led a perfectly blameless and open life. In his habits he was temperate, almost abstemious, he never touched a card, he never betted, the only gambling habit he indulged in was to take a ticket in a couple of club sweepstakes. But, of course, Rosabelle’s report was sure to be coloured a little on the favourable side. There are plenty of young men who lead double lives; models of discretion and decorum to all appearances, but secretly addicted to ruinous and discreditable vices which are only brought suddenly to light by some accident or fatal false step.