“We’ve struck it, guv’nor,” he declared huskily. “This has put the tin hat on it this has.”
Labar lit a cigarette wearily. “Tell me the worst,” he said.
“They’ve made a clean sweep of Streetly House. Old Gertstein’s foaming at the mouth. Quarter of a million of pounds worth of jewels and curios melted away as clean as a conjuring trick. I could smell Larry Hughes a thousand miles off in this.” His tone was gloomy, for he knew something of Labar’s troubles. “Nice lookout for us, an’ the Yard not throwing any flowers our way as it is.”
“You said it, Bill,” agreed Labar, rising, and pulling down his shirt sleeves. “It’s get on or get out, for me at any rate, this time. Get your hat on and tell ’em to ring through to the Chief. We’re liable to have some work to do.”
II
Anyone who could afford to live in Streetly House, that imposing and historic residence just off Park Lane, must by that fact alone, be known in some degree to the public. Mr. Solly Gertstein had added claims to a certain amount of limelight. He had been—was still to some extent—a financial power. He had interests in gold, in diamonds, in oil, but of late years he had relinquished the reins of his enterprises to brothers and cousins, while he concentrated on his ambition to get together a unique, and fabulously costly, collection of gems, and what the dealers call objets d’art.
He was not an artistic object in himself. A rotund little man, with a gait that somehow suggested a milk can rolled by a railway porter, and with a tendency to pomposity in his speech and manner, he yet contrived to hold some poise of dignity. He was unquestionably excited when Labar introduced himself.
“So you ’ave come.” In moments of stress he was apt to lose his usual meticulous command of the English language. “You ’ave come at last.”
“It is less than ten minutes since I got your message,” observed the inspector.
“Ach!” Mr. Gertstein flung his hands wide in an expressive gesture, as of one who accepts an excuse in which there is no body. He rotated round the room, buzzing like an agitated wasp. “An hour. Dis is what I pay for,” he proclaimed. “For dis I pay my thousands a year to the rates for police salaries. What protection do I get for it? None.” He waved a podgy hand. “All the work of the finest craftsmen in the world stripped from me. You will get it back, eh?”
Labar felt that it was only the vulgarity of the expression that prevented Gertstein from adding, “I don’t think.” He lifted his eyebrows.
“You are insured?”
The other gave an impatient snort. “Insured! What is insurance to me? Do you think that I—Gertstein—want the money? That—poof—a fleabite. The insurance companies will pay, but will that help me to get back all my beautiful things? Years and years of work gone like dat.” He snapped his fingers viciously.
“We’ll do our best,” said Labar, mildly. “Perhaps you will walk round with me and tell me all you know.”
In his mind he felt small hope. The very magnitude of the crime showed it to be the work of men who thoroughly understood their business. Jewels would be dismounted and cut up, gold melted down, and other things rendered unrecognisable in the swiftest and most efficient fashion.
Other of the C.I.D. men from Labar’s division were in the house by this time, and under his supervision a systematic and thorough search of the premises proceeded. It was a big rambling place, and it was obvious that the thieves, once they had obtained entrance, would have had no difficulty in secreting themselves till such time as they could work unobserved. As Labar expected, every burglar alarm in the place had been cut or put out of action in some way. The thieves must have gained precise information beforehand.
On the first floor two magnificent rooms had been given up to the display of Gertstein’s treasures. The chastely-designed glass cases still stood in their imposing splendour, but alas, they were mere cenotaphs with their treasures vanished. At a superficial glance, indeed, it was difficult to realise that they had been tampered with, so delicate had been the skill with which they had been opened.
As Gertstein pointed out with some bitterness, the marauders had selected their spoil with the most consummate judgment. It was obvious that the raid had been carried through to clean-cut specifications. There were many dainty bits of artistry left, but they were such things as enamels, ivory carvings and the like, which had value only for their craftsmanship, and would be difficult to dispose of intact.
Nor was there evident any indication of the manner in which entry to the house had been gained, or the method by which the thieves had left. The windows and doors were unmarked. Not a bolt or lock had been forced. Throughout the night no suspicious noises had been heard, and it was only when in the course of ordinary routine that a maid had entered one of the exhibition rooms, at eleven o’clock in the morning, that the robbery had been discovered.
“Not so much as a blighting fingerprint,” Bill Malone observed, and at the finish of a meticulous examination of the windows, added that it was the smoothest bust that he had ever run across in the course of his carmined career.
But a mystery may be too mysterious, too faultily faultless. Any defect, any lapse on the part of the thieves might have left the police even more in the air. As it was, there remained little doubt in the minds of the detectives that their first surmise was right—that they could breathe in a word the name of the supreme culprit—but much doubt as to the possibility of acquiring evidence to run him down. The men who could
