"All right, baby. If you say so. You always were the brains of the firm. If you think it's kayo, then it's all right by me and no more to be said. Cheese it! Here's his nibs back again." Mr. Carmody was coming up the gravel path, his air that of a man who has made a great decision. He had evidently been following a train of thought, for he began abruptly at the point to which it had led him. "There's only one thing," he said. "I don't like the idea of bringing in this friend of yours. He may be all right or he may not. You say you can trust him, but it seems to me the fewer people who know about this business, the better." These were Mr. Molloy's sentiments, also. He would vastly have preferred to keep it a nice, cosy affair among the three of them. But it was no part of his policy to ignore obvious difficulties. "I'd like that, too," he said. "I don't want to call in Chimp any more than you do. But there's this thing of getting the stuff out of the house." "What you were saying just now," Mrs. Molloy reminded Mr. Carmody. "It's got to look like an outside job, what I mean." "As it's called," said Mr. Molloy hastily. "She's always reading these detective stories," he explained. "That's where she picks up these expressions. Outside job, ha, ha! But she's dead right, at that. You said yourself it would be necessary to create the appearance of an actual burglary. If we don't get Chimp, who is going to take the stuff?" "I am." "Eh?" "I am," repeated Mr. Carmody stoutly. "I have been thinking the whole matter out, and it will be perfectly simple. I shall get up very early to-morrow morning and enter the picture gallery through the window by means of a ladder. This will deceive the police into supposing the theft to have been the work of a professional burglar." Mr. Molloy was regarding him with affectionate admiration. "I never knew you were such a hot sketch!" said Mr. Molloy. "You certainly are one smooth citizen. Looks to me as if you'd done this sort of thing before." "Wear gloves," advised Mrs. Molloy. "What she means," said Mr. Molloy, again speaking with a certain nervous haste, "is that the first thing the bulls--as the expression is--they always call the police bulls in these detective stories--the first thing the police look for is fingerprints. The fellows in the books always wear gloves." "A very sensible precaution," said Mr. Carmody, now thoroughly in the spirit of the thing. "I am glad you mentioned it. I shall make a point of doing so." CHAPTER VI I