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Page 117
"Thank you. I think that I quite follow you," said
Sherlock Holmes.
"It is of the utmost importance that you should notice
this point. I went down the stairs and into the hall,
where I found the commissionnaire fast asleep in his
box, with the kettle boiling furiously upon the
spirit-lamp. I took off the kettle and blew out the
lamp, for the water was spurting over the floor. Then
I put out my hand and was about to shake the man, who
was still sleeping soundly, when a bell over his head
rang loudly, and he woke with a start.
"'Mr. Phelps, sir!' said he, looking at me in
bewilderment.
"'I came down to see if my coffee was ready.'
"'I was boiling the kettle when I fell asleep, sir.'
He looked at me and then up at the still quivering
bell with an ever-growing astonishment upon his face.
"'If you was here, sir, then who rang the bell?' he
asked.
"'The bell!' I cried. 'What bell is it?'
"'It's the bell of the room you were working in.'
"A cold hand seemed to close round my heart. Some
one, then, was in that room where my precious treaty
lay upon the table. I ran frantically up the stair
and along the passage. There was no one in the
corridors, Mr. Holmes. There was no one in the room.
All was exactly as I left it, save only that the
papers which had been committed to my care had been
taken from the desk on which they lay. The copy was
there, and the original was gone."
Holmes sat up in his chair and rubbed his hands. I
could see that the problem was entirely to his heart.
"Pray, what did you do then?" he murmured.
"I recognized in an instant that the thief must have
come up the stairs from the side door. Of course I
must have met him if he had come the other way."
"You were satisfied that he could not have been
concealed in the room all the time, or in the corridor
which you have just described as dimly lighted?"
"It is absolutely impossible. A rat could not conceal
himself either in the room or the corridor. There is
no cover at all."
"Thank you. Pray proceed."
"The commissionnaire, seeing by my pale face that
something was to be feared, had followed me upstairs.
Now we both rushed along the corridor and down the
steep steps which led to Charles Street. The door at
the bottom was closed, but unlocked. We flung it open
and rushed out. I can distinctly remember that as we
did so there came three chimes from a neighboring
clock. It was quarter to ten."
"That is of enormous importance," said Holmes, making
a note upon his shirt-cuff.
"The night was very dark, and a thin, warm rain was
falling. There was no one in Charles Street, but a
great traffic was going on, as usual, in Whitehall, at
the extremity. We rushed along the pavement,
bare-headed as we were, and at the far corner we found
a policeman standing.
"'A robbery has been committed,' I gasped. 'A
document of immense value has been stolen from the
Foreign Office. Has any one passed this way?'
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