“You say that the Doctor was rich. Therefore, it wasn’t to escape from an execution threatened by the landlord.”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, you may rest assured, sir, that the removal was not effected by professional men. The way in which carpets have been torn up and damaged, curtains torn from their rings, and crockery smashed in moving, shows them to have been amateurs.”
They had ascended to the front bedroom, wherein remained a large, heavy old-fashioned mahogany chest of drawers, and he had walked across to them.
“Indeed,” he added. “It almost looks as though it were the work of thieves?”
“Thieves! Why?”
“Well—look at this. They had no keys, so they broke open the drawers, and removed the contents,” he answered. “And look across there!”
He pointed to a small iron fireproof safe let into the wall—a safe evidently intended originally as a place for the lady of the house to keep her jewels.
The door stood ajar, and Max, as he opened it, saw that it was empty.
The curious part of the affair was that Max was convinced within himself that when he had searched the house on the previous night that safe was not there. If it was, then the door must have been closed and concealed.