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Rh “That was the burden of his song for an hour or more. He had, it seems, no suspicion of an intrigue. They lived alone save for a woman who comes in by the day and leaves every evening at six. On that particular evening old Amberley, wishing to give his wife a treat, had taken two upper circle seats at the Haymarket Theatre. At the last moment she had complained of a headache and had refused to go. He had gone alone. There seemed to be no doubt about the fact, for he produced the unused ticket which he had taken for his wife.”

“Cut out the poetry, Watson,” said Holmes, severely.

“That is remarkable—most remarkable,” said Holmes, whose interest in the case seemed to be rising. “Pray continue, Watson. I find your narrative most arresting. Did you personally examine this ticket? You did not perchance take the number?”

“It so happens that I did,” I answered with some pride. “It chanced to be my old school number, thirty-one, and so it stuck in my head.”

“Excellent, Watson! His seat, then, was either thirty or thirty-two.”

“Quite so,” I answered, with mystification. “And on B row.”

“That is most satisfactory. What else did he tell you?"

“He showed me his strong-room, as he, called it. It really is a strong-room—like a bank—with iron door and shutter—burglar-proof, as he claimed. However, the woman seems to have had a duplicate key, and between them they had carried off some seven thousand pounds’ worth of cash and securities.”

“Securities! How could they dispose of those?”

“He said that he had given the police a list and that he hoped they would be unsaleable. He had got back from the theatre about midnight, and found the place plundered, the door and window open, and the fugitives gone. There was no letter or message, nor has he heard a word since. He at once gave the alarm to the police.”

Holmes brooded for some minutes.

“You say he was painting. What was he painting?”

“Well, he was painting the passage. But he had already painted the door and woodwork of this room I spoke of.”

“Does it not strike you as a strange occupation in the circumstances?”