‘What in the name of wonder is that?’ cried the detective. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, sir, I must have a detailed description before I can move a peg. I daresay the property is out of the country by this time, if it isn’t in the melting-pot.’ ‘A thief who took the trouble to rob Mr. Sivewright would most likely have some idea what he was stealing,’ answered Lucius, ‘and would hardly take rare old silver to the melting-pot. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Otranto; I’ll bring the old servant round here this afternoon, and you shall have the description from him. In cross-questioning him about the robbery you might, perhaps, arrive at some conclusion as to whether he had any hand in it.’ ‘I might, perhaps,’ retorted Mr. Otranto, with ineffable contempt; ‘let me have half-a-dozen words with the man and I’ll soon settle that question. I never saw the man yet that was made of such opaque stuff that I couldn’t see through him.’ ‘So much the better,’ said Lucius. ‘I want to find out whether this old man is a consummate hypocrite or an honest fellow. Shall you be at home at four o’clock this afternoon?’ ‘I shall.’ ‘Then I’ll bring him to you at that hour.’ Lucius went about his day’s work, and got through it by half-past three, when he took a hansom cab, a rare extravagance for him, and drove to Cedar House. He asked at once to see Mrs. Wincher’s good gentleman, whereupon Jacob Wincher emerged from his retreat briskly enough, and came to the garden-gate where Lucius waited. ‘You haven’t heard anything of the property?’ he asked eagerly. ‘No. But I want you to come along with me to give a description of it.’ ‘To the police-station, sir?’ asked Wincher, without any appearance of alarm or unwillingness. ‘Never mind where. You’ll find out all about it when you get there,’ answered Lucius, in whose mind yet lurked suspicions as to the old servant’s honesty. The cab bore them speedily to Mr. Otranto’s office, and was there dismissed. Wincher entered that cave of mystery as calmly as a lamb going to the slaughter, or indeed much more calmly than the generality of those gentle victims, which seem to have some foreboding of the doom that awaits them within. Mr. Otranto looked up from his desk, and contemplated the old man with a critical glance, keen, swift, searching, the glance of a connoisseur in that walk of art; as if Mr. Wincher had been a picture, and he, Mr. Otranto, were called upon to decide whether he were an original or a fraudulent copy. After that brief survey, the detective gave a somewhat contemptuous sniff; and then proceeded to elicit a description of the lost property, which Mr. Wincher gave ramblingly, and in a feebly nervous manner. To Lucius it seemed very much the manner of guilt. Mr. Otranto asked a great many questions about the robbery, some of which seemed to Lucius puerile or even absurd. But he deferred to the superior wisdom of the trained detective.