"The fact is," said Algernon, slowly, "that I have missed one or two papers of my own lately; matters of no consequence. God knows why anyone should have thought it worth while to take them! But they're gone." Gibbs looked up with serious alarm in his face. "Dear me, sir!" he exclaimed; "dear me, Mr. Errington! I wish you had mentioned this before." "Oh well, you know, I thought I might be mistaken. I hate being on the watch about trifles. But latterly I am quite sure that papers have disappeared from my secretaire." "From that little cabinet with drawers in it, that stands in your room?" "Exactly." "But--I was under the impression that you kept that carefully locked!" Algernon laughed outright. "What a fellow you are, Gibbs! Fancy my keeping anything carefully locked! The fact is, it is as often open as shut. Only a few days ago, for instance, Mrs. Errington mentioned to me that she found it unlocked when she was here----" He stopped as if struck by a sudden thought, and turned his eyes away from Gibbs, who was looking up at him with the same uneasy expression on his face. "By-the-way, Mrs. Errington did not stay very long here, did she?" asked Algernon, with a degree of marked embarrassment very unusual in him. It was an embarrassment so ingeniously displayed that one might almost have suspected he wished it to be observed. "When do you mean, sir? Mrs. Errington comes very often; very often indeed." "Does she?--I mean--I mean the last time she was here. Did she stay long then?" "N--no," answered Gibbs, removing his eyes from Algernon's face, and biting the feather of his pen thoughtfully. "At least, I think not, sir. I cannot be sure. She very often does not pass out through my office, but goes away by the private door in the passage." There was a pause. "I really am very glad that you don't suspect any of the people about the place, Gibbs," said Algernon at length, rousing himself with some apparent effort from a reverie. "As long as I have any authority here, no innocent person shall be made unhappy for one moment by watchfulness and suspicion." "That's a very kind feeling, Mr. Errington. But I shouldn't think an innocent person would mind being watched in such a case. For my own part, I hope we shall trace the matter out. It shan't be my fault if we don't." "You are wonderfully energetic, Gibbs. An invaluable public servant. But, Gibbs, it will not, I think, be any part of your duty to mention to any one at present the losses I have spoken of from my secretaire. There is no reason, as yet, to connect them with the missing letters. I did not duly consider what I was saying. The papers, after all, were only private letters of my own, Gibbs. They concern no one but myself. One was a mere note--an invitation from a lady. They could have had no value for a thief, you know. I--I daresay I mislaid it, and never put it into the secretaire at all."