“Looks like it. Me and my missis would like to come out, too,” said Adam Henniker. “But we can’t afford new furniture. The whitewashers and sweeps is enough for us. Do you have a decent sort of sweep round here?” “Oh, yes, he did very well, and was particularly clean. I never knew a sweep take such pains over a job. He lives round the corner, in the back street.” That same evening Adam Henniker imparted his discoveries to me, and invoked my aid in the matter. He had found certain marks on the window-sill, spout, and the flooring of the looted room which his magnifying glass and his sense of smell assured him were produced by soot, and as soot is generally associated with people whose garments are habitually covered with it he had no hesitation in deciding that the sweep must have become suspicious as to the contents of the closed chamber, and that he had made a very profitable nocturnal visit to it, aided by the spout, and by the implements of his real trade. “I don’t know how the people failed to hear the noise that must have been made,” continued Adam, “for the man fell and hurt himself severely. I saw evidences of this in the area. There were some spots of blood on the ground, and there were marks on the wall. I should fancy that he must have tied the bag of jewellery on his back, and that he was coming down the spout again, when he slipped, and was supported by his trousers until they gave way, and left this piece of cloth hanging on a nail which projects from the wall. I went to the sweep’s house, ostensibly to order a chimney to be swept, but was told that the man had hurt himself at his trade, and was laid up with a broken leg. It is now your turn to take the matter up.” I saw no difficulty in doing this, for my work seemed cut and dried. The next morning witnessed a metamorphosis in my appearance. I presented myself at the sweep’s house in the garb of a charity nurse, and said that I had heard there was a man lying ill there, and was willing to nurse him two or three hours a day. As it happened, the sweep’s wife was very glad of my services, for though the fellow’s leg was not broken, he had sustained so many injuries that I marvelled how he had managed to reach home with his booty. I concluded that the wife was ignorant of the real cause of her husband’s accident, and of the robbery, or she would not have trusted me to sit at the now delirious man’s bedside, while she attended to her household duties in the room which served as a kitchen. It did not take me long to discover that my patient kept a feverish hold upon a small key. This key fitted a box that stood at the foot of the bed, and a judiciously administered opiate enabled me to get it into my possession at a time when Mrs Sweep had gone upon a lengthy errand.