The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
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the robbery. Since no charge was made for depositing this property in my strong-room, obviously, I am not liable unless it can be shown that the loss was due to negligence. But the question of negligence turns on the robbery.”
“Which I understand was committed by one of your own staff?”
“Yes, the man Osmond, whom I mentioned; one of my confidential clerks—Hepburn, here, is the other—who had access to the strong-room and who absconded as soon as the robbery was discovered.”
“When you say he had access,” said Mr. Penfield, “you mean—”
“That he had access to the key during office hours. As a matter of fact, it hangs on the wall beside my desk, and when I am there the strong-room is usually kept open—the door is in my private office and opposite to my desk. Of course, when I leave at the end of the day, I lock up the strong-room and take the key away with me.”
“Yes. But in the interval—hm? It almost looks as if a claim might be—hm? But you have given me only an outline of the affair. Perhaps a more detailed account might enable us better to form an opinion on the position. Would it be troubling you too much?”
“Not at all,” replied Mr. Woodstock; “but it is rather a long story. However, I will cut it as short as I can. We will take the events in the order in which they occurred; and you must pull me up, Hepburn, if I overlook anything.
“The missing valuables are the property of a client of mine named Hollis; a retired soap manufacturer, as rich as Croesus, and like most of these over-rich men, having made a fortune was at his wit’s end what to do with it. Eventually, he adopted the usual plan. He became a collector. And having decided to burden himself with a lot of things that he didn’t want, he put the lid on it by specializing in goldsmith’s work, jewellery and precious stones. Wanted a valuable collection, he said, that could be kept in an ordinary dwelling-house.
“Well, of course, the acquisitive mania, once started, grew by what it fed on. The desire to possess this stuff became an obsession. He was constantly planning expeditions in search of new rarities, scouring the Continent for fresh loot, flitting from town to town and from dealer to dealer like an idiotic bee. And whenever he went off on one of these expeditions he would bring the pick of his confounded collection to me to have it deposited in my strong-room. I urged him to take it to the bank; but he doesn’t keep an account with any of the local branches and didn’t want to take the stuff to London. Moreover, he had inspected my strong-room and was a good deal impressed by it.”
“It is really strong, is it?” asked Mr. Penfield.
“Very. Thick reinforced concrete lined with steel. Very large, too. Not that the strength is material as it was not broken into. Well, eventually I agreed to deposit the things in the strong-room—couldn’t refuse an important client—but I resolutely declined to make any charge or accept any sort of consideration for the service. I wasn’t going to make myself responsible for the safety of things of that value. And I explained my position to Hollis; but he said that a strong-room that was good enough for my valuable documents was good enough for his jewels. Which was talking like a fool. Burglars don’t break into safes to steal leases.
“Well, this business began about six years ago, and—so far as I can tell—nothing amiss occurred until quite lately. I say so far as I can tell, for of course we can’t date the robbery. We only know when it was discovered. But I assume that the theft was committed pretty recently or it would surely have been discovered sooner.”
“And when was it first ascertained that a robbery had been committed?” asked Mr. Penfield, dipping a quill into the ink.
“On the fourth of October,” replied Mr. Woodstock; and having paused while Mr. Penfield noted the date, he continued: “On that day Hollis took a great ruby up to South Kensington, where it had been accepted for a loan exhibition. He delivered it himself to the keeper of the precious stones, and was a little taken aback when that gentleman, after a preliminary inspection, began to pore over it with a magnifying-glass and then sent for one of his colleagues. The second expert raised his eyebrows when he had looked at the gem, and he, too, made a careful scrutiny with the lens. Finally, they sent for a third official; and the upshot of it was that the three experts agreed that the stone was not a ruby at all but only a first-class imitation.
“Of course Hollis didn’t believe them, and said so. He had bought the stone for four thousand pounds from a well-known dealer and had shown it to a number of connoisseurs, who had all been enthusiastic about the colour and lustre of the gem. There had never been any question that it was not merely a genuine ruby, but a ruby of the highest class. However, when e had heard the verdict of the experts, he pocketed his treasure and went straight off to Cawley’s in Piccadlilly. But when Mr. Cawley shook his head over the gem and pronounced it an unquestionable counterfeit, he became alarmed and danced off in a deuce of a twitter to the dealer from whom he had bought it.
“That interview settled the matter. The dealer remembered the transaction quite well and knew all about the stone, for he had full records of the circumstances under which he had acquired it. Moreover, he recognized the setting—a pendant with a surround of small diamonds—but he was quite clear that the stone in it was not the stone that he had sold to Hollis. In fact it was not a stone at all; it was just a good-class paste ruby. The original had been picked out of the setting and the counterfeit put in its place; and the person who had done the job was apparently not a skilled jeweller, for there were traces on the setting of some rather amateurish work.”
“There is no doubt, I suppose,” said Mr. Penfield, “of the bona-fides of the dealer?”
“Not the slightest,” was the reply. “He is a man of the highest reputation; and as a matter of fact, no regular dealer would palm off a counterfeit. It wouldn’t be business. But the question doesn’t really arise, as you will see when I proceed with the story.
“As soon as Hollis was convinced that a substitution had been effected, he commissioned an independent expert to come down and make a critical survey of his collection; and it was then ascertained that practically every important gem in his cabinets was a counterfeit. And in every case in which the stone was a false one, the same traces of clumsy workmanship were discoverable by an expert eye.
“The conclusion was obvious. Since the original gems had come from all sorts of different sources, there could he no question of fraud on the part of the various vendors; to say nothing of the fact that Hollis—who has practically no knowledge of stones himself—always obtained an expert opinion before concluding a deal. It was obvious that a systematic robbery had been carried out, and the question that arose was, who could the robber be?
“But that question involved certain others; as, for instance, when had the robbery been committed? where were the jewels at that time? and who had access to the place in which they were?
“These were difficult questions. At first it seemed as if they were unanswerable, and perhaps some of them would have been if the robber had not lost his nerve. But I am anticipating. Let us take the questions in their order.
“First as to the date of the robbery. It happens that a little less than two years ago Professor Eccles came down by invitation and made a careful inspection of Hollis’s collection with a view to a proposed bequest to the nation, and marked off what he considered to be the most valuable specimens. Now, I need not say that if Professor Eccles detected no counterfeit stones, we may take it that no counterfeits were there. Consequently, the collection was then intact and the robbery must have been committed since that date. But it happens that that date coincides almost exactly with the arrival of Osmond at my office. Just two years ago Hepburn introduced him to me; and as he is Hepburn’s brother-in-law, I accepted him with perfect confidence.
“The other questions seemed more difficult. As to Hollis’s own premises, the jewel-room had a Chubb detector lock on its only door, the cabinets have similar locks, the windows are always kept securely fastened, and no attempt has ever been made to break into the place. Besides, burglars would simply have taken the jewels away. They would not have left substitutes. The personnel of his household—a lady secretary, a housekeeper, and two maids—appear