“You’re a bit hard, sir,” the Inspector protested.
“Well, you criticized my methods, remember. If I were to arrest the fellow just now, I doubt if I could convince a jury of his guilt. And they’d be quite right. It’s their business to be sceptical and insist on definite proof. It’s that proof that I expect to get out of tonight’s work.”
“It will be very instructive for me, sir,” Inspector Armadale commented, with heavy irony.
“You take things too seriously,” Sir Clinton retorted, with an evident double meaning in the phrase. “What you need, Inspector, is a touch of fantasy. You’ll get a taste of it tonight, perhaps, unless my calculations go far astray. Now I’m going to ring up Mr. Chacewater and make arrangements for tonight.”
And with that he dismissed the Inspector.
Armadale retired with a grave face; but when he closed the door behind him his expression changed considerably.
“There he was, pulling my leg again, confound him!” he reflected. “A touch of fantasy, indeed! What’s he getting at now? And the worst of it is I haven’t got to the bottom of the business yet myself. He’s been quite straight in giving me all the facts. I’m sure of that. But they seem to me just a jumble. They don’t fit together anyhow. And yet he’s not the bluffing kind; he’s got it all fixed up in his mind; I’m sure of that, whether he’s right or wrong. Well, we’ll see before many hours are over.”
And with reflections like these Inspector Armadale had to content himself until nightfall.
As they drove up to the Ravensthorpe gates the Inspector found Sir Clinton in one of his uncommunicative moods. He seemed abstracted, and even, as the Inspector noted with faint malice, a little anxious about the business before them. When they reached the gates they found the constabulary squad awaiting them. Sir Clinton got out of the car, after running it a little way up the avenue.
“Now, the first thing you’ve got to remember,” he said, addressing the squad, “is that in no circumstances are you to make the slightest noise until you hear my second whistle. You know what you’re to do? Get up behind the house at the end opposite to the servants’ wing and stay there till you get my signal. Then you’re to come out and chase the man whom the Inspector will show you. You’re not to try to catch him. Keep a hundred yards behind him all the time; but don’t lose sight of him. The Inspector will give you instructions after you’ve chased for a while. Now which of you are the two with tennis shoes?”
Two constables stepped out of the ranks. Sir Clinton took them aside and gave them some special instructions.
“Now, you’d better get to your places,” he said, turning to the squad again. “Remember, not a sound. I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait, but we must take things as they come.”
As the squad was led off into the night, he moved over to where the Inspector was standing.
“I want something out of the car,” he said. The Inspector followed him and waited while Sir Clinton switched off the headlights and the tail lamp. The Chief Constable felt in a locker and handed something to Armadale.
“A pair of night-glasses, Inspector. You’ll need them. And that’s the lot. We’d better get to our position. There’s no saying when the fellow may begin his work.”
Rather to the mystification of the Inspector, Sir Clinton struck across the grass instead of following the avenue up to the house. After a fairly long walk they halted under a large tree.
“A touch of fantasy was what I recommended to you, Inspector. I think a little tree-climbing is indicated. Sling these glasses round your neck as I’m doing and follow on.”
“Quite mad!” was the Inspector’s involuntary comment to himself. “I suppose, once we get up there, he’ll come down again and tell me I needed exercise.”
He followed the Chief Constable, however; and was at last directed to a branch on which he could find a safe seat.
“Think I’m demented, Inspector?” Sir Clinton demanded with the accuracy of a thought-reader. “It’s not quite so bad as that, you’ll be glad to hear. Turn your glasses through that rift in the leaves. I was at special pains to cut it yesterday evening, in preparation for you. What do you see?”
The Inspector focused his glasses and scanned the scene visible through the fissure in the foliage.
“The front of Ravensthorpe,” he answered.
“Some windows?”
“Yes.”
“Well, one of them’s the window of the museum; and this happens to be one of the few points from which you can see right into the room. If the lights were on there, you’d find that we’re looking squarely on to the door of the safe.”
With this help the Inspector was able to pick out the window which evidently he was expected to watch.
“It’ll be a slow business,” Sir Clinton said in a bored tone. “But one of us has got to keep an eye on that window for the next hour or two at least. We can take it in turn.”
They settled down to their vigil, which proved to be a prolonged one. The Inspector found his perch upon the branch anything but comfortable; and it grew more wearisome as the time slipped past.
“Fantasy!” he commented bitterly to himself as he shifted his position for the twentieth time. “Cramp’s more likely.”
But at last their tenacity was rewarded. It was during one of the Inspector’s spells of watching. Suddenly the dark rectangle of
