Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (888 page)

“It is certainly most extraordinary,” said the inspector. “ I never remember a case like it. Let us see the watchman.”

The commissionaire was called — a soldierly, honest-faced man, who seemed as concerned as Ward Mortimer at the incident.

“No, sir, I never heard a sound,” he answered, in reply to the questions of the inspector. “I made my rounds four times, as usual, but I saw nothing suspicious. I’ve been in my position ten years, but nothing of the kind has ever occurred before.”

“No thief could have come through the windows?”

“Impossible, sir.”

“Or passed you at the door?”

“No, sir; I never left my post except when I walked my rounds.”

“What other openings are there in the museum?”

“There is the door into Mr. Ward Mortimer’s private rooms.”

“That is locked at night,” my friend explained, “and in order to reach it any one from the street would have to open the outside door as well.”

“Your servants?”

“Their quarters are entirely separate.”

“Well, well,” said the inspector, “this is certainly very obscure. However, there has been no harm done, according to Mr. Purvis.”

“I will swear that those stones are genuine.”

“So that the case appears to be merely one of malicious damage. But none the less, I should be very glad to go carefully round the premises, and to see if we can find any trace to show us who your visitor may have been.”

His investigation, which lasted all the morning, was careful and intelligent, but it led in the end to nothing. He pointed out to us that there were two possible entrances to the museum which we had not considered. The one was from the cellars by a trap-door opening in the passage. The other through a skylight from the lumber-room, overlooking that very chamber to which the intruder had penetrated. As neither the cellar nor the lumber-room could be entered unless the thief was already within the locked doors, the matter was not of any practical importance, and the dust of cellar and attic assured us that no one had used either one or the other. Finally, we ended as we began, without the slightest clue as to how, why, or by whom the setting of these four jewels had been tampered with.

There remained one course for Mortimer to take, and he took it. Leaving the police to continue their fruitless researches, he asked me to accompany him that afternoon in a visit to Professor Andreas. He took with him the two letters, and it was his intention to openly tax his predecessor with having written the anonymous warning, and to ask him to explain the fact that he should have anticipated so exactly that which had actually occurred. The Professor was living in a small villa in Upper Norwood, but we were informed by the servant that he was away from home. Seeing our disappointment, she asked us if we should like to see Miss Andreas, and showed us into the modest drawing-room.

I have mentioned incidentally that the Professor’s daughter was a very beautiful girl. She was a blonde, tall and graceful, with a skin of that delicate tint which the French call “mat,” the colour of old ivory or of the lighter petals of the sulphur rose. I was shocked, however, as she entered the room to see how much she had changed in the last fortnight. Her young face was haggard and her bright eyes heavy with trouble.

“Father has gone to Scotland,” she said. “He seems to be tired, and has had a good deal to worry him. He only left us yesterday.”

“You look a little tired yourself, Miss Andreas,” said my friend.

“I have been so anxious about father.”

“Can you give me his Scotch address?”

“Yes, he is with his brother, the Rev. David Andreas, 1, Arran Villas, Ardrossan.”

Ward Mortimer made a note of the address, and we left without saying anything as to the object of our visit. We found ourselves in Belmore Street in the evening in exactly the same position in which we had been in the morning. Our only clue was the Professor’s letter, and my friend had made up his mind to start for Ardrossan next day, and to get to the bottom of the anonymous letter, when a new development came to alter our plans.

Very early on the following morning I was aroused from my sleep by a tap upon my bedroom door. It was a messenger with a note from Mortimer.

“Do come round,” it said; “the matter is becoming more and more extraordinary.”

When I obeyed his summons I found him pacing excitedly up and down the central room, while the old soldier who guarded the premises stood with military stiffness in a corner.

“My dear Jackson,” he cried, “ I am so delighted that you have come, for this is a most inexplicable business.”

“What has happened, then?”

He waved his hand towards the case which contained the breastplate.

“Look at it,” said he.

I did so, and could not restrain a cry of surprise. The setting of the middle row of precious stones had been profaned in the same manner as the upper ones. Of the twelve jewels, eight had been now tampered with in this singular fashion. The setting of the lower four was neat and smooth. The others jagged and irregular.

“Have the stones been altered?” I asked.

“No, I am certain that these upper four are the same which the expert pronounced to be genuine, for I observed yesterday that little discolouration on the edge of the emerald. Since they have not extracted the upper stones, there is no reason to think the lower have been transposed. You say that you heard nothing, Simpson?”

“No, sir,” the commissionaire answered. “But when I made my round after daylight I had a special look at these stones, and I saw at once that someone had been meddling with them. Then I called you, sir, and told you. I was backwards and forwards all the night, and I never saw a soul or heard a sound.”

“Come up and have some breakfast with me,” said Mortimer, and he took me into his own chambers.—”Now, what do you think of this, Jackson?” he asked.

“It is the most objectless, futile, idiotic business that ever I heard of. It can only be the work of a monomaniac.”

“Can you put forward any theory? “

A curious idea came into my head. “This object is a Jewish relic of great antiquity and sanctity,” said I. “How about the anti-Semitic movement? Could one conceive that a fanatic of that way of thinking might desecrate—”

“No, no, no!” cried Mortimer.
“That will never do! Such a man might push his lunacy to the length of destroying a Jewish relic, but why on earth should he nibble round every stone so carefully that he can only do four stones in a night? We must have a better solution than that, and we must find it for ourselves, for I do not think that our inspector is likely to help us. First of all, what do you think of Simpson, the porter?”

“Have you any reason to suspect him?”

“Only that he is the one person on the premises.”

“But why should he indulge in such wanton destruction? Nothing has been taken away. He has no motive.”

“Mania?”

“No, I will swear to his sanity.”

“Have you any other theory? “

“Well, yourself, for example. You are not a somnambulist, by any chance?”

“Nothing of the sort, I assure you.”

“Then I give it up.”

“But I don’t — and I have a plan by which we will make it all clear.”

“To visit Professor Andreas?”

“No, we shall find our solution nearer than Scotland. I will tell you what we shall do. You know that skylight which overlooks the central hall? We will leave the electric lights in the hall, and we will keep watch in the lumber-room, you and I, and solve the mystery for ourselves. If our mysterious visitor is doing four stones at a time, he has four still to do, and there is every reason to think that he will return tonight and complete the job.”

“Excellent! “ I cried.

“We will keep our own secret, and say nothing either to the police or to Simpson. Will you join me?”

“With the utmost pleasure,” said I; and so it was agreed.

It was ten o’clock that night when I returned to the Belmore Street Museum. Mortimer was, as I could see, in a state of suppressed nervous excitement, but it was still too early to begin our vigil, so we remained for an hour or so in his chambers, discussing all the possibilities of the singular business which we had met to solve. At last the roaring stream of hansom cabs and the rush of hurrying feet became lower and more intermittent as the pleasure seekers passed on their way to their stations or their homes. It was nearly twelve when Mortimer led the way to the lumber room which overlooked the central hall of the museum.

He had visited it during the day, and had spread some sacking so that we could lie at our ease, and look straight down into the museum. The skylight was of unfrosted glass, but was so covered with dust that it would be impossible for any one looking up from below to detect that he was overlooked. We cleared a small piece at each corner, which gave us a complete view of the room beneath us. In the cold white light of the electric lamps everything stood out hard and clear, and I could see the smallest detail of the contents of the various cases.

Such a vigil is an excellent lesson, since one has no choice but to look hard at those objects which we usually pass with such half-hearted interest. Through my little peep-hole I employed the hours in studying every specimen, from the huge mummy-case which leaned against the wall to those very jewels which had brought us there, gleaming and sparkling in their glass case immediately beneath us. There was much precious gold-work and many valuable stones scattered through the numerous cases, but those wonderful twelve which made up the urim and thummim glowed and burned with a radiance which far eclipsed the others. I studied in turn the tomb-pictures of Sicara, the friezes from Karnak, the statues of Memphis, and the inscriptions of Thebes, but my eyes would always come back to that wonderful Jewish relic, and my mind to the singular mystery which surrounded it. I was lost in the thought of it when my companion suddenly drew his breath sharply in, and seized my arm in a convulsive grip. At the same instant I saw what it was which had excited him.

I have said that against the wall — on the right-hand side of the doorway (the right-hand side as we looked at it, but the left as one entered) — there stood a large mummy-case. To our unutterable amazement it was slowly opening. Gradually, gradually the lid was swinging back, and the black slit which marked the opening was becoming wider and wider. So gently and carefully was it done that the movement was almost imperceptible. Then, as we breathlessly watched it, a white thin hand appeared at the opening, pushing back the painted lid, then another hand, and finally a face — a face which was familiar to us both, that of Professor Andreas. Stealthily he slunk out of the mummy-case, like a fox stealing from its burrow, his head turning incessantly to left and to right, stepping, then pausing, then stepping again, the very image of craft and of caution. Once some sound in the street struck him motionless, and he stood listening, with his ear turned, ready to dart back to the shelter behind him. Then he crept onwards again upon tiptoe, very, very softly and slowly, until he had reached the case in the centre of the room. There he took a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked the case, took out the Jewish breastplate, and, laying it upon the glass in front of him, began to work upon it with some sort of small, glistening tool. He was so directly underneath us that his bent head covered his work, but we could guess from the movement of his hand that he was engaged in finishing the strange disfigurement which he had begun.

I could realise from the heavy breathing of my companion, and the twitchings of the hand which still clutched my wrist, the furious indignation which filled his heart as he saw this vandalism in the quarter of all others where he could least have expected it. He, the very man who a fortnight before had reverently bent over this unique relic, and who had impressed its antiquity and its sanctity upon us, was now engaged in this outrageous profanation. It was impossible, unthinkable — and yet there, in the white glare of the electric light beneath us, was that dark figure with the bent, grey head, and the twitching elbow. What inhuman hypocrisy, what hateful depth of malice against his successor must underlie these sinister nocturnal labours! It was painful to think of and dreadful to watch. Even I, who had none of the acute feelings of a virtuoso, could not bear to look on and see this deliberate mutilation of so ancient a relic. It was a relief to me when my companion tugged at my sleeve as a signal that I was to follow him as he softly crept out of the room. It was not until we were within his own quarters that he opened his lips, and then I saw by his agitated face how deep was his consternation.