“It is really very kind of you to make such distinctions,” laughed Westerham. “Only, as it happens, there is another alternative which you have not suggested. It is not my business to point it out to you, but I will give you the opportunity of discovering it for yourself. I know quite enough of Captain Melun to prevent my pleading ignorance or folly in the cultivation of his acquaintance; on the other hand, if you suggest that I am apparently enjoying his friendship because my ideas of life are the same as his, then you are wrong again. Can you think of any other reason for my being with Captain Melun?” “None,” said the detective, with what was meant to be a most significant air. “Then,” said Westerham, “suppose we adjourn this conversation _sine die_. It affords me very little pleasure, and apparently gives you uncommonly little satisfaction. Before you go, however, I am afraid I must add to your troubles. I assure you that I have not the faintest notion who broke into my rooms and who gagged my valet, any more than I have the remotest idea what the motive could possibly be. There were a good many things, scarf-pins and the like, lying about all over the place, but nothing has been stolen.” “Oh,” said the detective with deep meaning, “but suppose they were looking for something else quite other than articles of value—I should say of intrinsic value. Suppose that someone had a notion that he would like to recover something you had no right to be possessed of; or suppose that the person who broke in imagined that he might find something among your papers which would be of use to him?” “Now, my dear sir,” said Westerham, “I do not wish to insult you, but really you are a very poor judge of human character. Do you suppose I should not know if whatever I had no right to be possessed of had gone? Do you think that if some paper or papers which might give someone else a hold over me had been taken I should not also by this time be acquainted with the fact? And in either of those cases, should I be so entirely indifferent to the matter as I am now? No, I assure you I think that there has been some mistake.” “Now look here, Mr. Robinson,” said the detective, with a more friendly air, “let me ask a straight question. Do you suspect that Captain Melun has had a hand in this?” “No,” replied Westerham, with emphasis, “I do not. I feel certain that he has had nothing to do with it.” “Is there no one else, then, whom you can possibly conceive guilty of such an outrage?” Westerham gave himself up to a few minutes of genuine hard thinking. “No,” he said at last slowly; “I can think of no one in the world who would have any object in treating my rooms in this way.” “Then surely,” cried the detective, “if it is a mystery to you, you would like the matter cleared up?”