but, oh!  Mr. Hewitt, consider the temptation—­and remember that it couldn’t do a soul any harm.  No matter who might be suspected, I knew there could not possibly be evidence to make them suffer.  All the next day—­yesterday—­I was anxiously worrying out the thing in my mind and carefully devising the—­the trick, I’m afraid you’ll call it, that you by some extraordinary means have seen through.  It seemed the only thing—­what else was there?  More I needn’t tell you; you know it.  I have only now to beg that you will use your best influence with Lord Stanway to save me from public derision and exposure.  I will do anything—–­pay anything—­anything but exposure, at my age, and with my position.”

“Well, you see,” Hewitt replied thoughtfully, “I’ve no doubt Lord Stanway will show you every consideration, and certainly I will do what I can to save you in the circumstances; though you must remember that you have done some harm—­you have caused suspicions to rest on at least one honest man.  But as to reputation, I’ve a professional reputation of my own.  If I help to conceal your professional failure, I shall appear to have failed in my part of the business.”

“But the cases are different, Mr. Hewitt.  Consider.  You are not expected—­it would be impossible—­to succeed invariably; and there are only two or three who know you have looked into the case.  Then your other conspicuous successes——­”

“Well, well, we shall see.  One thing I don’t know, though—­whether you climbed out of a window to break open the trap-door, or whether you got up through the trap-door itself and pulled the bolt with a string through the jamb, so as to bolt it after you.”

“There was no available window.  I used the string, as you say.  My poor little cunning must seem very transparent to you, I fear.  I spent hours of thought over the question of the trap-door—­how to break it open so as to leave a genuine appearance, and especially how to bolt it inside after I had reached the roof.  I thought I had succeeded beyond the possibility of suspicion; how you penetrated the device surpasses my comprehension.  How, to begin with, could you possibly know that the cameo was a forgery?  Did you ever see it?”

“Never.  And, if I had seen it, I fear I should never have been able to express an opinion on it; I’m not a connoisseur.  As a matter of fact, I didn’t know that the thing was a forgery in the first place; what I knew in the first place was that it was you who had broken into the house.  It was from that that I arrived at the conclusion, after a certain amount of thought, that the cameo must have been forged.  Gain was out of the question.  You, beyond all men, could never sell the Stanway Cameo again, and, besides, you had paid back Lord Stanway’s money.  I knew enough of your reputation to know that you would never incur the scandal of a great theft at your place for the sake of getting the cameo for yourself,