Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/144

 We could scarcely expect it; but it would have been a stroke of genius if the thief had burned some papers to throw us off the track."

"The thief!" she repeated.

"You must see," he said, "that the theft of the papers presupposes a thief. I have been certain from the start that some one was in the room after the murder. What he was after I haven't known until now. He was at the safe, which he must have found open. Some one who wanted those papers wanted them enough to induce him to commit this murder, and then to enter the room and search the safe, while the dead man lay at the door. It was a terrible risk—as terrible as that of the murder itself. Suppose Oldbeg had been a half-hour later in coming home. He would unquestionably have found the murdered man with the murderers in the room. By just that narrow margin this perplexing mystery escaped proving a mere blundering crime."