His rooms are _en suite_, one out of another, and from the door-mat he can see through all four of them, between the curtains of Eastern stuffs which he had brought home years before from Tiflis. He cannot believe in the sight which meets his eyes in the third room, which is his study. There is in that room a large Florentine cabinet of tortoise-shell and brass-work; the key of the drawers thereof is on his watch-chain; yet he perceives that the drawers are all open, their contents are strewn about, and stooping down over them is Critchett. Critchett’s back is unmistakable; it has as much character in it as the profile of Cæsar or Napoleon. Bertram walks noiselessly over the thick carpets, and touches him on the shoulder. “You!--a common thief!” Critchett stumbles to his feet, pulls himself erect rather nervously, and faces his employer. In his right hand is a pearl necklace. “I beg pardon, sir,” he murmurs. “I thought you had gone to Mr. Domville’s. I was coming down with the valise.” Bertram takes the pearls out of his grasp; he has grown much paler than his nefarious valet. He is cut to the heart. “A common thief--you!” he repeats. The _Et tu Brute_ had not more pathetic reproval in it. Critchett in the interval has recovered his self-possession, and what more vulgar persons would call his cheek. “Excuse me, sir. There aren’t such a thing as theft. What is called theft is only an over-violent readjustment of unfairly divided values. I’ve read it in the _Age to Come_.” “You infernal scoundrel! These are my dead mother’s jewels!” “I know they are, sir. They were doing no good here; and you told the ladies yesterday as all jewellery was an abomination.” “This is probably not the first time by many that you have robbed me?” “I let nobody else steal a farthing from you, sir.” “Indeed! You like vicarious virtue! How could you open the cabinet? It has a Bramah lock.” “And this here’s a Bramah pick-lock, sir,” says Critchett, displaying an elegant little tool. “You infernal scoundrel!” repeats Bertram. “If I did my duty, I should give you to the police.” “Oh, no, sir, you couldn’t do that to be consistent; and consistency is the first of virtues. I’ve heard you say, sir, that prevention is suggestion, and that if there was no constables there’d be no crime. In locking up this cabinet you put into my mind the idea of opening it. It is you, sir, who are to blame, not I.” Critchett smiles demurely as he repeats these words. “You have debased me, sir, by making me fill a servile office,” he adds. “No man should serve another. You’ve said so often.” Bertram is silent, unspeakably annoyed, mortified, and distressed. He cannot discuss ethics with a treacherous valet. “I believed in you, Critchett,” he says, after a pause. Critchett smiles. “I know you did, sir; you believe in a lot o’ things as won’t wash.” “And you feel no remorse for having deceived me?”