It really is a strong-room—like a bank—with iron door and shutter—burglar-proof, as he claimed. However, the woman seems to have had a duplicate key, and between them they had carried off some seven thousand pounds’ worth of cash and securities.”
“Securities! How could they dispose of those?”
“He said that he had given the police a list and that he hoped they would be unsaleable. He had got back from the theatre about midnight, and found the place plundered, the door and window open and the fugitives gone. There was no letter or message, nor has he heard a word since. He at once gave the alarm to the police.”
Holmes brooded for some minutes.
“You say he was painting. What was he painting?”
“Well, he was painting the passage. But he had already painted the door and woodwork of this room I spoke of.”
“Does it not strike you as a strange occupation in the circumstances?”
“‘One must do something to ease an aching heart.’ That was his own explanation. It was eccentric, no doubt, but he is clearly an eccentric man. He tore up one of his wife’s photographs in my presence—tore it up furiously in a tempest of passion. ‘I never wish to see her damned face again,’ he shrieked.”
“Anything more, Watson?”
“Yes, one thing which struck me more than anything else. I had driven to the Blackheath Station and had caught my train there, when just as it was starting I saw a man dart into the carriage next to my own. You know that I have a quick eye for faces, Holmes. It was undoubtedly the tall, dark man whom
