Constable Mould was one of the slowest-witted men in Rudge, and he had eyes like two brown puddles filmed over with scum, but he was doing his best to look at John keenly. "No." "Why not?" "I wasn't here." "You said you were, sir," Constable Mould pointed out cleverly. "I mean, I wasn't anywhere near the house," replied John impatiently. "Immediately I arrived I went out for a row on the moat." "Then you did not see or observe anything?" "No." Constable Mould, who had been licking the tip of his pencil and holding a notebook in readiness, subsided disappointedly. "When did this happen?" asked John. "It is impossible to say," replied Mr. Carmody. "By a most unfortunate combination of circumstances the house was virtually empty from almost directly after dinner. Hugo and his friend, as you know, left for London yesterday morning. Mr. Molloy and his daughter took the car to Birmingham to see a play. And I myself retired to bed early with a headache. The man could have effected an entrance without being observed almost any time after eight o'clock. No doubt he actually did break in shortly before midnight." "How did he get in?" "Undoubtedly through this window by means of a ladder." John perceived that the glass of the window had been cut out. "Another most unfortunate thing," proceeded Mr. Carmody, "is that the objects stolen, though so extremely valuable, are small in actual size. The man could have carried them off without any inconvenience. No doubt they are miles away by this time, possibly even in London." "Was this here stuff insured?" asked Constable Mould. "Yes. Curiously enough, the reason my nephew here went to London yesterday was to increase the insurance. You saw to that matter, John?" "Oh, yes." John spoke absently. Like everybody else who has ever found himself on the scene of a recently committed burglary, he was looking about for clues. "Hullo!" "What is the matter?" "Did you see this?" "Certainly I saw it," said Mr. Carmody. "I saw it first," said Constable Mould. "The man must have cut his finger getting it." "That's what I thought," said Constable Mould. The combined Mould-Carmody-John discovery was a bloodstained fingerprint on the woodwork of the window sill: and, like so many things in this world, it had at first sight the air of being much more important than it really was. John said he considered it valuable evidence, and felt damped when Mr. Carmody pointed out that its value was decreased by the fact that it was not easy to search through the whole of England for a man with a cut finger. "I see," said John. Constable Mould said he had seen it right away. "The only thing to be done, I suppose," said Mr. Carmody resignedly, "is to telephone to the police in Worcester. Not that they will be likely to effect anything, but it is as well to observe the formalities. Come downstairs with me, Mould."