[Illustration]
"In the outer office my men usually work. In the inner office I work
myself. These rooms communicate, as you see, by a door. Our ordinary way
in and out of the place is by the door of the outer office leading into
the corridor, and we first pass through the usual lifting flap in the
barrier. The door leading from the _inner_ office to the corridor is
always kept locked on the inside, and I don't suppose I unlock it once in
three months. It has not been unlocked all the morning. The drawer in
which the missing drawings were kept, and in which I saw them at ten
o'clock this morning, is at the place marked D; it is a large chest of
shallow drawers in which the plans lie flat."
"I quite understand. Then there is the private room opposite. What of
that?"
"That is a sort of private sitting-room that I rarely use, except for
business interviews of a very private nature. When I said I never left my
office, I did not mean that I never stirred out of the inner office. I was
about in one room and another, both the outer and the inner offices, and
once I went into the private room for five minutes, but nobody came either
in or out of any of the rooms at that time, for the door of the private
room was wide open, and I was standing at the book-case (I had gone to
consult a book), just inside the door, with a full view of the doors
opposite.
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