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The former, barring the way to a weed- and grass-grown drive, was hermetically sealed by rust; while the other was just as permanently fixed open by the accumulation of earth and gravel about its lower part. Two parallel rows of ragged, untrimmed privet designated the tortuous way of the drive to the unused porte-cochère. "Nasty case," Stodger was imparting, in queer staccato sentences.
At a late hour we knocked off and sought the library's easy-chairs. After a while Stodger asked me for the cipher. When I dropped off to sleep he was industriously digging away at it, with many gasps and inarticulate exclamations.
I tried to yell to Stodger to be up and after them, but the result was only a painful wheezing in my throat. Then the gasping form on the floor groaned, and I managed to get dizzily to my feet. We received the worst of that fight in more ways than one. When I managed to find a candle and light it, I discovered that Stodger was the one who had groaned.
I would have been hard put to it to interpret the impression which Alexander Burke had made upon my mind, if Stodger had demanded my opinion at that moment. As his round, cherubic face emerged between the curtains, I turned to him with considerable curiosity. "Told it word for word as he did to me," was my companion's comment. "Could n't have told it better if it had been a piece learnt by heart."
I was warm enough now, heaven knows, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that I was inflicting far more damage than I was receiving. I knew when Stodger unhesitatingly threw himself into the thick of the fray. Good old Stodger! And there we fought, silently, furiously, in the restricted space of the bath room, enveloped in a darkness that one could almost feel.
The first thing I noticed as I sped up the stairs was the absence of Stodger from his post in the upper hall, where I had last seen him. Only a few minutes previously I had peeped into the lower hall to satisfy myself that everything was right; at that time he was leaning on the balustrade, engaged in a desultory conversation with Officer Morrison, stationed below. But in a moment I understood.
Yes, there it was a small smear of soap, where the bar had struck. For a while Stodger thought I was crazy, and perhaps I was. I fumed and raved at him for not entering into the search with a frenzied zeal equal to mine. At last he too understood. But our pawing over the floor and the stairs, and even in the snow outdoors, availed nothing. We were beaten, confounded, made a laughing-stock.
The matter was serious enough, in all conscience. Our incessant vigilance was most certainly justified by the pertinacity of these mysterious prowlers, for as long as they surreptitiously sought to enter the house, my belief that the ruby lay hid somewhere beneath its roof was in a way confirmed. Stodger was sagely nodding his head at me. "To-night," he said, with meaning. "Bet anything you like."
Burke," said I, quietly, "will you please wait with Mr. Stodger while I have a few words with Mr. Maillot?" The blank, pale face was turned briefly toward me or Maillot then the man bowed without a word, and followed Stodger. He paused an instant at the door, and looked across his shoulder at Maillot; enigma that he was, I nevertheless again caught a triumphant gleam in the tawny eyes.
"I can take oath there was not," he now said. Stodger had already assured me that when he arrived every door and window was fast on the inside. So I next asked: "When you went to notify the police, did you depart by way of the front door?" "I did," he replied in a subdued voice. And Maillot immediately added: "It was fast, Swift bolt and spring-latch, both.
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