The innocent-looking Mr. Milsey, who, during this conversation, had mechanically sipped at his whisky and soda and reflectively gazed at the various pictures with which the absent Mr. Stillwater had decorated the walls of his parlour, plunged a hand into some deep recess in his overcoat and brought out an oblong case which reminded Triffitt of nothing so much as those Morocco or Russian-leather affairs in which a knife, a fork, and a spoon repose on padded blue satin and form an elegant present to a newly-born infant. Mr. Milsey snapped open the lid of his case, and revealed, instead of spoon or fork or knife a number of shining keys, of all sorts and sizes and strange patterns, all of delicate make and of evidently superior workmanship. He pushed the case across the table to the corner at which Triffitt was sitting, and Davidge regarded it fondly in transit. "Pretty things, ain't they?" he said. "Good workmanship there! There's not very much that you could lock up--in the ordinary way of drawers, boxes, desks, and so on--that Milsey there couldn't get into with the help of one or other of those little friends--what, Jim?" "Nothing!--always excepting a safe," assented Mr. Milsey. "Well, we don't suppose our friend next door keeps an article of that description on his premises," said Davidge cheerfully. "But we expect he's got a desk, or a private drawer, or something of that nature in which we may find a few little matters of interest and importance--it's curious, Mr. Triffitt--we're constantly taking notice of it in the course of our professional duties--it's curious how men will keep by them bits of paper that they ought to throw into the fire, and objects that they'd do well to cast into the Thames! Ah!--I've known one case in which a mere scrap of a letter hanged a man, and another in which a bit of string got a chap fifteen years of the very best--fact, sir! You never know what you may come across during a search." "You're going to search his rooms?" asked Triffitt. "Something of that sort," replied Davidge. "Just a look round, you know, and a bit of a peep into his private receptacles." "Then--you're suspecting him in connection with this----" began Triffitt. Davidge stopped him with a look, and slowly drank off the contents of his glass. Then he rose. "We'll talk of those matters later," he said significantly. "Now that my gentleman's safely away I think we'll set to work. It'll take a bit of time. And first of all, Mr. Triffitt, we'll examine your balcony door--I know enough about these modern flats to know that everything's pretty much alike in them as regards fittings, and if your door's easy to open, so will the door of the next be. Now we'll just let Jim there go outside with his apparatus, and we'll lock your balcony door on him, and then see if he finds any difficulty in getting in. To it, Jim!"