Speaking of the bedroom reminds me of the necessity of noticing the situation of it in the house, and the means that exist of gaining easy access to it at any hour of the night.  The room in question is the back room on the first floor.  In consequence of Mrs. Yatman’s constitutional nervousness on the subject of fire, which makes her apprehend being burnt alive in her room, in case of accident, by the hampering of the lock, if the key is turned in it, her husband has never been accustomed to lock the bedroom door.  Both he and his wife are, by their own admission, heavy sleepers.  Consequently, the risk to be run by any evil-disposed persons wishing to plunder the bedroom was of the most trifling kind.  They could enter the room by merely turning the handle of the door; and if they moved with ordinary caution, there was no fear of their waking the sleepers inside.  This fact is of importance.  It strengthens our conviction that the money must have been taken by one of the inmates of the house, because it tends to show that the robbery, in this case, might have been committed by persons not possessed of the superior vigilance and cunning of the experienced thief.

Such are the circumstances, as they were related to Sergeant Bulmer, when he was first called in to discover the guilty parties, and, if possible, to recover the lost bank-notes.  The strictest inquiry which he could institute failed of producing the smallest fragment of evidence against any of the persons on whom suspicion naturally fell.  Their language and behavior, on being informed of the robbery, was perfectly consistent with the language and behavior of innocent people.  Sergeant Bulmer felt, from the first, that this was a case for private inquiry and secret observation.  He began by recommending Mr. and Mrs. Yatman to affect a feeling of perfect confidence in the innocence of the persons living under their roof; and he then opened the campaign by employing himself in following the goings and comings, and in discovering the friends, the habits, and the secrets of the maid-of-all-work.

Three days and nights of exertion on his own part, and on that of others who were competent to assist his investigations, were enough to satisfy him that there was no sound cause for suspicion against the girl.

He next practised the same precautions in relation to the shopman.  There was more difficulty and uncertainty in privately clearing up this person’s character without his knowledge, but the obstacles were at last smoothed away with tolerable success; and though there is not the same amount of certainty, in this case, which there was in the case of the girl, there is still fair reason for believing that the shopman has had nothing to do with the robbery of the cash-box.