He seemed a
pretty smart fellow, and the first thing he noticed on the dressing-table,
within an inch or two of where the bracelet had been, was a match, which
had been lit and thrown down. Now nobody about the house had had occasion
to use a match in that room that day, and, if they had, certainly wouldn't
have thrown it on the cover of the dressing-table. So that, presuming the
thief to have used that match, the robbery must have been committed when
the room was getting dark--immediately before Mrs. Heath returned, in
fact. The thief had evidently struck the match, passed it hurriedly over
the various trinkets lying about, and taken the most valuable."
"Nothing else was even moved?"
"Nothing at all. Then the thief must have escaped by the window, although
it was not quite clear how. The walking party approached the house with a
full view of the window, but saw nothing, although the robbery must have
been actually taking place a moment or two before they turned up.
"There was no water-pipe within any practicable distance of the window,
but a ladder usually kept in the stable-yard was found lying along the
edge of the lawn.
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