Winsor. [With relief] I’ll come with you, Inspector.

     He escorts him to the door, and they go out.

De Levis. [Suddenly] General, I know who took them.

Canynge.  The deuce you do!  Are you following the Inspector’s theory?

De Levis. [Contemptuously] That ass! [Pulling the shaving papers out of the case] No!  The man who put those there was clever and cool enough to wrench that creeper off the balcony, as a blind.  Come and look here, General. [He goes to the window; the general follows.  De Levis points stage Right] See the rail of my balcony, and the rail of the next? [He holds up the cord of his dressing-gown, stretching his arms out] I’ve measured it with this.  Just over seven feet, that’s all!  If a man can take a standing jump on to a narrow bookcase four feet high and balance there, he’d make nothing of that.  And, look here! [He goes out on the balcony and returns with a bit of broken creeper in his hand, and holds it out into the light] Someone’s stood on that—­the stalk’s crushed—­the inner corner too, where he’d naturally stand when he took his jump back.

Canynge. [After examining it—­stiffly] That other balcony is young Dancy’s, Mr De Levis; a soldier and a gentleman.  This is an extraordinary insinuation.

De Levis.  Accusation.

Canynge.  What!

De Levis.  I have intuitions, General; it’s in my blood.  I see the whole thing.  Dancy came up, watched me into the bathroom, tried my door, slipped back into his dressing-room, saw my window was open, took that jump, sneaked the notes, filled the case up with these, wrenched the creeper there [He points stage Left] for a blind, jumped back, and slipped downstairs again.  It didn’t take him four minutes altogether.

Canynge. [Very gravely] This is outrageous, De Levis.  Dancy says he was downstairs all the time.  You must either withdraw unreservedly, or I must confront you with him.

De Levis.  If he’ll return the notes and apologise, I’ll do nothing—­ except cut him in future.  He gave me that filly, you know, as a hopeless weed, and he’s been pretty sick ever since, that he was such a flat as not to see how good she was.  Besides, he’s hard up, I know.

Canynge. [After a vexed turn up and down the room] It’s mad, sir, to jump to conclusions like this.

De Levis.  Not so mad as the conclusion Dancy jumped to when he lighted on my balcony.

Canynge.  Nobody could have taken this money who did not know you had it.

De Levis.  How do you know that he didn’t?

Canynge.  Do you know that he did?

De Levis.  I haven’t the least doubt of it.

Canynge.  Without any proof.  This is very ugly, De Levis.  I must tell
Winsor.