“I am,” replied Clive. “This shock and the scene at dinner and the dog fight and your mix-up with Vail--well, they aren’t the best things for a sick man. They’ve started my head to aching again.” “H’m! Too bad!” commented Mosely. “But not so bad as if you’d lost $12,000 worth of good joolry.... I s’pose I spoke a little too quick when I told Mr. Vail he was a crook and said he ran a robber’s roost. But he had no call to knock me down. I didn’t carry it any further; because I don’t believe in fisticuffs before ladies. But I warn you I’m going to summons you folks as witnesses in the assault-and-battery suit I bring against him. The young ruffian!” “If you’re wise, Mr. Mosely,” suggested Clive, his usual calm manner sharpening, “you’ll bring no suit. You’ll let that part of the matter drop as suddenly as you yourself dropped. If we have to testify that he knocked you down, we’ll also testify to what you called him and that you shook your fist at him in what looked like a menace. Such a gesture constitutes what lawyers call ‘technical assault.’ No jury will convict Vail for self-defense. As for your loss--even if this were a regular hotel--you surely must know a proprietor is not responsible for valuables left in a guest’s room. I’m sorry for you. But you seem to have no redress.” Mosely glowered blackly. Then, without answering, he turned his back on Creede and stamped into the living room. “Telephoned the police yet?” he demanded of Vail. “No,” said Thaxton. “Call them up yourself if you like. The main phone is out there at the back of the hall. Call up the Aura police station. I suppose we come within its jurisdiction more than Lenox’s.” Mosely departed in search of the telephone. His wife stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. “Oh, if we’d only left Petty on guard up there!” she wailed. “We always feel so safe when Petty is on guard! Mr. Vail, I’m certain this is an inside job. It--” “Yes,” assented Willis Chase. “That’s what the police are certain to say, anyhow. When they can’t find out anything else, they always label it an ‘inside job’ and behave as if that explained everything.” “What is an ‘inside job’?” asked Creede. “It sounds familiar. But--” “An inside job is a job the police can’t find a clue to,” explained Chase. “So they leave the rest of the work to the detectives. That’s the climax. When a policeman blows out his brains and survives, they make a detective of him. Why, Thax, don’t you remember when the Conant house was robbed and the--” “Yes,” answered Vail, grinning at the memory. “I remember. That was the time Chief Quimby’s box of safety matches got afire in his hip pocket while he was on his hands and knees looking for clues. And you tried to extinguish the blaze by kicking him. I remember he wanted to jail you for ‘kicking an officer in pursuit of his duty.’ You said his hip pocket wasn’t ‘out yet but seemed to be under control.’”