"When your assistants went into the inner room, I carried this stick off
for a minute or two. I knew it was not Worsfold's, because there was an
umbrella there with his initial on the handle. Look at this."
Martin Hewitt gave the handle a twist and rapidly unscrewed it from the
top. Then it was seen that the stick was a mere tube of very thin metal,
painted to appear like a Malacca cane.
"It was plain at once that this was no Malacca cane--it wouldn't bend.
Inside it I found your tracings, rolled up tightly. You can get a
marvelous quantity of thin tracing-paper into a small compass by tight
rolling."
"And this--this was the way they were brought back!" the engineer
exclaimed. "I see that clearly. But how did they get away? That's as
mysterious as ever."
"Not a bit of it! See here. Mirsky gets hold of Ritter, and they agree to
get your drawings and photograph them. Ritter is to let his confederate
have the drawings, and Mirsky is to bring them back as soon as possible,
so that they sha'n't be missed for a moment. Ritter habitually carries
this Malacca cane, and the cunning of Mirsky at once suggests that this
tube should be made in outward fac-simile.
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