“I found the box lying on one of the steps closed as I had held it. The only thing that was missing was the Mt. Aubyn Ruby!
“Devlin and O’Brien have all kinds of theories but I told them I wanted the stone back and if they didn’t get it I wouldn’t have them any longer in my employ.
“Devlin says he will swear a car passed him on the Boston road yesterday containing some Continental crooks who used to operate along the Italian and French riviera. He’s full of wild fancies and swears I shall get the ruby back. I’m not so sure. I’ve given up the theory that it was a great black bat which hit me, but whatever it was it was a stunt pulled by a master craftsman who is laughing at Devlin and his kind. Can you imagine a crook who would leave behind what this fellow did?
“I wish you’d go to the Pemberton Detective Agency and get them to send some one up here capable of handling the situation. I shall be coming down to New York as soon as I’m able. I’m too much bruised to play golf but when I do I shall win some of your money. I’ve had some lessons from a crackerjack golfer up here who goes round the eighteen holes in anything from seventy-two to seventy-eight. My stance was wrong and I wasn’t gripping right.”
So much for Jerome Dangerfield. When Devlin and O’Brien examined the scene of the crime they immediately noticed that some fifteen feet above the ground level a stained glass window lighted the stairway. “Of course,” they exclaimed in unison, “that is the solution.” But the theory did not hold water, as the soil of the flower-beds showed no sign of a ladder or any footmark. They had been raked over that afternoon and the gardener swore no foot but his had set foot in this enclosed garden which supplied the hotel tables with blooms. An examination of the window showed no helpful finger marks. It was an indoor job, they declared, amending their first opinion.
But they were thorough workmen in their way. For instance: Anthony Trent, reclining fully dressed across his bed with cigarette stubs and emptied glasses about him within thirty minutes of the robbery, was evidently in fear of interruption. An onlooker would have seen him take three gin fizzes in rapid succession until indeed his face wore a faint flush. He listened keenly when outside his door footsteps lingered. And he was snoring alcoholically when the hotel clerk entered, bringing with him Messrs. Devlin and O’Brien.
“He’s been like this for days,” Graham, the clerk, asserted. “If it wasn’t that he was no trouble and made no noise I should have told him to get out. A pity,” Graham shook his head, “one of the pleasantest-spoken men in the hotel, and some golfer, they tell me.”
“You leave us,” Devlin commanded. “We are acting for the boss and it’ll be all right.”
Out of the corner of his eye Trent watched the two trained men make a thorough examination of his room and effects. Indeed, their thoroughness gave him ideas which were later to prove of use. But they drew blank. They examined the two fly rods he had brought with him and a collapsible landing net with great care, tapping the handles and balancing the rods. They sighed when nothing was found.
“This guy is all right,” said O’Brien.