Martin Hewitt, Investigator | Page 5

matter that Mrs. Armitage wouldn't hear
of my calling in the police or anything of that sort, although I felt pretty
certain that there must be a dishonest servant about somewhere. A
servant might take a plain brooch, you know, who would feel afraid of
a valuable ring, the loss of which would be made a greater matter of."
"Well, yes, perhaps so, in the case of an inexperienced thief, who also
would be likely to snatch up whatever she took in a hurry. But I'm
doubtful. What made you connect these two robberies together?"
"Nothing whatever--for some months. They seemed quite of a different
sort. But scarcely more than a month ago I met Mrs. Armitage at
Brighton, and we talked, among other things, of the previous
robbery--that of Mrs. Heath's bracelet. I described the circumstances
pretty minutely, and, when I mentioned the match found on the table,
she said: 'How strange! Why, my thief left a match on the
dressing-table when he took my poor little brooch!'"
Hewitt nodded. "Yes," he said. "A spent match, of course?"
"Yes, of course, a spent match. She noticed it lying close by the
pin-cushion, but threw it away without mentioning the circumstance.
Still, it seemed rather curious to me that a match should be lit and
dropped, in each case, on the dressing-cover an inch from where the
article was taken. I mentioned it to Lloyd when I got back, and he
agreed that it seemed significant."
"Scarcely," said Hewitt, shaking his head. "Scarcely, so far, to be called
significant, although worth following up. Everybody uses matches in
the dark, you know."
"Well, at any rate, the coincidence appealed to me so far that it struck
me it might be worth while to describe the brooch to the police in order
that they could trace it if it had been pawned. They had tried that, of
course, over the bracelet without any result, but I fancied the shot might
be worth making, and might possibly lead us on the track of the more
serious robbery."

"Quite so. It was the right thing to do. Well?"
"Well, they found it. A woman had pawned it in London--at a shop in
Chelsea. But that was some time before, and the pawnbroker had clean
forgotten all about the woman's appearance. The name and address she
gave were false. So that was the end of that business."
"Had any of the servants left you between the time the brooch was lost
and the date of the pawn ticket?"
"No."
"Were all your servants at home on the day the brooch was pawned?"
"Oh, yes! I made that inquiry myself."
"Very good! What next?"
"Yesterday--and this is what made me send for you. My late wife's
sister came here last Tuesday, and we gave her the room from which
Mrs. Heath lost her bracelet. She had with her a very old-fashioned
brooch, containing a miniature of her father, and set in front with three
very fine brilliants and a few smaller stones. Here we are, though, at the
Croft. I'll tell you the rest indoors."
Hewitt laid his hand on the baronet's arm. "Don't pull up, Sir James," he
said. "Drive a little farther. I should like to have a general idea of the
whole case before we go in."
"Very good!" Sir James Norris straightened the horse's head again and
went on. "Late yesterday afternoon, as my sister-in-law was changing
her dress, she left her room for a moment to speak to my daughter in
her room, almost adjoining. She was gone no more than three minutes,
or five at most, but on her return the brooch, which had been left on the
table, had gone. Now the window was shut fast, and had not been
tampered with. Of course the door was open, but so was my daughter's,
and anybody walking near must have been heard. But the strangest
circumstance, and one that almost makes me wonder whether I have

been awake to-day or not, was that there lay a used match on the very
spot, as nearly as possible, where the brooch had been--and it was
broad daylight!"
Hewitt rubbed his nose and looked thoughtfully before him.
"Um--curious, certainly," he said, "Anything else?"
"Nothing more than you shall see for yourself. I have had the room
locked and watched till you could examine it. My sister-in-law had
heard of your name, and suggested that you should be called in; so, of
course, I did exactly as she wanted. That she should have lost that
brooch, of all things, in my house is most unfortunate; you see, there
was some small difference about the thing between my late wife and
her sister when their mother died and left it. It's almost worse than the
Heaths' bracelet