had also been forced.  Proceeding up the stairs, Mr. Cutler found another door open, leading from the top landing to a small room; this door had been opened by the simple expedient of unscrewing and taking off the lock, which had been on the inside.  In the ceiling of this room was a trap-door, and this was six or eight inches open, the edge resting on the half-wrenched-off bolt, which had been torn away when the trap was levered open from the outside.

Plainly, then, this was the path of the thief or thieves.  Entrance had been made through the trap-door, two more doors had been opened, and then the desk had been ransacked.  Mr. Cutler afterward explained that at this time he had no precise idea what had been stolen, and did not know where the cameo had been left on the previous evening.  Mr. Claridge had himself undertaken the cleaning, and had been engaged on it, the assistant said, when he left.

There was no doubt, however, after Mr. Claridge’s arrival at ten o’clock—­the cameo was gone.  Mr. Claridge, utterly confounded at his loss, explained incoherently, and with curses on his own carelessness, that he had locked the precious article in his desk on relinquishing work on it the previous evening, feeling rather tired, and not taking the trouble to carry it as far as the safe in another part of the house.

The police were sent for at once, of course, and every investigation made, Mr. Claridge offering a reward of five hundred pounds for the recovery of the cameo.  The affair was scribbled off at large in the earliest editions of the evening papers, and by noon all the world was aware of the extraordinary theft of the Stanway Cameo, and many people were discussing the probabilities of the case, with very indistinct ideas of what a sardonyx cameo precisely was.

It was in the afternoon of this day that Lord Stanway called on Martin Hewitt.  The marquis was a tall, upstanding man of spare figure and active habits, well known as a member of learned societies and a great patron of art.  He hurried into Hewitt’s private room as soon as his name had been announced, and, as soon as Hewitt had given him a chair, plunged into business.

“Probably you already guess my business with you, Mr. Hewitt—­you have seen the early evening papers?  Just so; then I needn’t tell you again what you already know.  My cameo is gone, and I badly want it back.  Of course the police are hard at work at Claridge’s, but I’m not quite satisfied.  I have been there myself for two or three hours, and can’t see that they know any more about it than I do myself.  Then, of course, the police, naturally and properly enough from their point of view, look first to find the criminal, regarding the recovery of the property almost as a secondary consideration.  Now, from my point of view, the chief consideration is the property.  Of course I want the thief caught, if possible, and properly punished; but still more I want the cameo.”